Simple but functional.
Had a room on the first floor near the front of the hotel and it was noisy at night with a nightclub nearby and lots of stag/hen parties staggering back in during the night.

Clean, comfortable (would recommend taking your own pillows unless you like sleeping on bags of cement!).

Continental breakfast included in price - eat as much as you like!

Very convenient location near to the centre of Edinburgh - 10 mins walk to the Royal Mile.
Restaurants and cinema complex just across the road.

Excellent value for money if you book in advance on their hotel website - paid £85 per night, but walk in is £130 per night.

Staff friendly and helful booking up restaurants.

Recommended but don't expect luxury.

We booked interconnecting rooms for us and our three small children six months in advance, and checked the booking twice. When we showed up, having had to go all the way around the block to the back to get up the "disabled access" with our pram, they'd given all interconnecting rooms away - and not even to people who needed them, because we got one half of one! Our other room was four doors away.
The next day we got interconnected - but when I asked for someone to help, the person who came up proceeded to [--] about his fellow staffers and how hopeless they were and how it wasn't his fault. Do I care?
The rooms themselves were neat, but breakfast was cold, with no fresh fruit, and loud, like a grim cafeteria. We had to clear dirty plates off a table to get a seat. We were promised eggs for breakfast but they did not appear - and one night a false alarm from the kitchen had us all outside in the rain in our pyjamas.

Just returned from 4 nights at the HIE Edinburgh City. Got a great price directly from the hotel website (GBP 49 per night for 3 people) - excellent value. We had a room on the ground floor - double bed and a sofa bed. As previous reviewer wrote - hotel is new so no signs of shabbiness yet. Everything is new and clean. It's a very basic hotel, no extras, but great for a few nights' city break. Breakfast is included - continental. For the first time in a very long time found a hotel that was actually encouraging guests to take breakfast trays back to room!!! Very handy when you have a teenager who sleeps late!
Location of the hotel is excellent if on foot. Not a lot of parking spaces if you come by car. Lots of restaurants nearby. Unfortunately the hotel staff aren't much help when trying to get restaurant recommendations. The one told me - we used to have a book here with all the menus, but someone threw it out... Lame excuse in my opinion - how difficult would it be to collect menus from nearby restaurants????????????????
Front desk staff were a mixture of friendly and less friendly - on the first night I went to ask for an extra blanket and it never arrived - I think the guy on duty just couldn't have been bothered. When I asked another staff member for a late checkout (1 hour later than the advertised checkout time, and I am a Priority Club gold member) she made a big deal about how it was a big favour for her to do it..............
All in all we had a good stay; felt safe; comfortable; clean; price was good.

A good HI Express, very well located if on foot.

Usual HI Express facilities. Relatively new, so few signs of shabbiness.

Rooms at the front can be noisy.

Very busy place, so a bit lacking in "soul". Front desk staff very efficient and (very important) they are friendly!

A bit expensive for an Express, but that would be because of the location and popularity.