by Snotwalker
I just played my first game with a buddy last night, and we dove into it with the full starting recommended mage builds, not the watered down shorter apprentice intro...It was no problem for us to quickly pick up the tactics and strategies, and have a great game... BUT, I think it also depends on your overall "gaming experience". For us, we're old hat at many a game going back to MtG in the early 90's, and up to our current gaming library of Twilight Struggle, Heroscape, Fury of Dracula, Paths of Glory, Dominion, Last Night on Earth, etc..., so learning Mage Wars was quick, easy, and very intuitive.
So if you're an experienced gamer, I'd say go full version. (But start with a Beastmaster VS Warlock, as the rules recommend. They are more direct and easier to start with than the Wizard or Priestess, IMHO.)
Our game was a bit over 2 hours, but this is mostly due to explaining the rules and longer Planning phases as we learned our spell books. But time still seemed to fly by, and we were both wanting to dive into a rematch as soon as game 1 ended.... always a sign of a good game!
Just make sure that one of you really knows the rules well before the game.