by davypi
Le Havre is much deeper and complex game. Billing Harbor has 20 minute version of Le Havre is simultaneously accurate and misleading. Some of the core mechanics are there, but so much more is lost when you compare a filler game to a heavy euro.What the two games have in common are: Single worker placement, resource collection, constructing buildings.
What Harbour is missing: Resources have to be upgraded in Le Havre. Early buildings use clay, but later in the game, you have to convert clay into brick to build more advanced buildings. Harbour's core mechanism is the market manipulation. Prices in Le Havre are fixed. In Harbour you only score points from buildings, but in Le Havre you can win games by doing a lot of shipping and only a few buildings. In Le Havre, resources accumulate on their own each turn and you can simply pick up a pile of resources that nobody else has taken. (i.e. You don't have to use a building to gain resources.) Le Havre has a feeding/upkeep mechanism that forces you to produce food in addition to all the other things you want to accomplish. The decision tree in Le Havre is also much much wider as you have seven resource piles and a few dozen buildings to choose from on your actions. (Which may sound overwhelming but as the game goes on, some of these choices become obviously ineffecient.)
Looking at the ratings in your profile, you like Concordia, Burgundy, and Dungeon Pets, so its clear that you don't shy away from complex games. Le Havre and Waterdeep are both based off of Caylus, so that you like Waterdeep is a also good sign. It does seem a bit odd that you've never played an Uwe Rosenburg game though. (Or at least not rated one.) Also, since you don't have very many negative ratings in your profile, its hard to isolate what you don't like. However, based on your current ratings, I would guess that Le Havre would be at least an 8.5 for you, probably a nine.
A friend of mine and I played this quite often as a two player game and can now finish games in about 90 minutes. (This includes setup and breakdown time.) When we were less experienced, games were 2-2.5 hours.