It's ridiculous that anybody is reviewing the game at this point.  There is no way anybody could have an informed opinion this early in the game's life.

I always feel there needs to be 2 reviews these days, release and like 1 year on. It's just a pity that developers are forced to publish their games before they are ready. If Stardock had even 1 month more to polish then I think there would be far far less bugs etc. The beta didn't even get to test some of the changes since they weren't ready yet :/

At the moment I must admit, its not the bugs or the awkward UI that's causing me problems its aspects of the game itself.

Apart from annoyances like overpowered guardians which should really be used to guard your territory not tear up your opponents (this should be fixed). I'm finding the sluggish control, awkward interface, muddy graphics, uninteresting replication of building types, generic units, rather poor borderlands type graphics all are getting me down. My GF loves Strat/RPG and is a great litmus test for me with games. She immediately didnt connect with elemental. Her comments I thought were really valid as a complete stranger to elemental but with lots of gaming experience so here they are:

Missions are repetitive and feel tacked on. Whats the point?

Factions are too similar, humanoid with slightly different colour. Why not undead? Or Different races?

Unit design is pointless waste of time, she thought if there was unit design it should be for more elite units or special mage's rather than the grunts where each is exactly the same with slightly different bonus's. You really want to be able to create specialist units that really can do different things in the battle or embue essence into special monsters (like a monster designer).

Tactical battles do not have line of sight blocking objects or interesting terrain.

City building is pointless on the map and annoying when you run out of tiles due to terrain features. She didnt know why you plonked buildings down rather than having one city tile which as you add buildings slowly creates a much better looking city (like civ). Unless each building actually had a special effect why bother being able to select them?

The terrain is bland and in fantasy settings the richness of the wildlife is essential. Hidden areas, forests that look like enchanted forests, multi-tile graphcial blending rather then individual tile objects. This is one of the main problems, on the cloth map you get a sprawling forest. Zoomed in it just looks like tiles of generic forest. Not having blending with other tiles graphically creates a real limitation of graphical smoothness between terrains. She thought this was a really bad mistake.

The champions have no personality whatsoever and she couldn't relate to any of them. I think this was due to the graphical style. Maybe a 1000 different small jpg portraits with a generic heroe on map piece would be better than a snapshot of a generic looking 3d person.

Finally the graphical touches and polish simply arn't there. When you open a chest I don't want a popup I want to see the chest open and money come pouring out or rising into the sky. Classic fantasy thememing has been left out.

So I asked her would you play elemental if most of these things were addressed, and she replied, yes but the graphics engine needs serious updating as it looks so muddy and unattractive at the moment any I just can't connect with any of the creatures or champions. Who wants the magic sword when it looks like a toothpick? The items do not look attractive and RPG's are about aquiring nice things.

Oh dear.

I'm a bit less harsh on the game. I think it has potential but seriously I think it needs another years work and a graphic overhaul, a rethink about cities, and a lot more fantasy theme, and the whole game needs to run faster/smoother/and play more interesting before I will play it regularly. Fingers crossed. I think this review below sums it up for me at the moment lets hope it can be improved on.

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/elementalwarofmagic/player_review.html?id=734605&tag=player-reviews%3Bcontinue%3B2

*ROFL* Priceless!

EACH and EVERY game is being reviewed upon it's release day version! *shakeshead*

If a new car is introduced to the market, you order one and realize on delivery day flaws like that the navigation system only comes with maps of four states, the tank is leaking and although it was supposed to have shiny metallic effect color and nifty patterned alcatara seats, it is only available in dull grey and cheap cotton seats along with a awfully lacking car manual and someone is putting out a bad review in your favorite car magazine, would you also say that he has no right to review/judge it so early?

Would you also say that others who complain about these ovious flaws they shold shut up and wait for the car builder and free mechanics to fix that?

I think that what Mtn_Man meant is that Elemental is an unusually complex game and, specially in light of the lacking or absent documentation, requires more time to fully discover and explore than reviewers are usually willing or able to invest into a game. Many users who review also compose their comments or articles after a few minutes or hours of playing. Elemental does seem to floor most people, be it because of the issue with the documentation, the thin tutorial or the unusual UI, and unless someone gives it some time, the first impressions may not be so overwhelmingly positive -- but they will stay around for years. It's a bit like reviewing a 1000-pages book after reading the first fifty. Not entirely without value, but not necessarily meaningful.

Anyway, I summarized the same in my other post.

You mean they shouldn't be held to the same standard that every other game company is held to?

Reviewers normally get a copy of the game sent early so they can review it and have a review up on release day (or soon after). That gives them time to actually dig into the game somewhat. The idea that you can't review this game is silly.

I see your point Mivo. But this is how the gaming industry has worked for the last decades, I'd say.

Companies release a game, give copies to the reviewing game magazines and those along with players publish their reviews and hence build a good or bad reputation for the product. If a game company chooses to release a game that reaches the state it should have had out of the box in maybe 4 to 6 weeks it doesn't matter that it will. The damage is done on day one...

Maybe nowadays that routine should be changed to giving away review copies after two months of player feedback and acccording bugfixing, I don't know...

The big advantage SD has is that it's quite well known for listening to feedback and being dedicated to improving their product as quickly and thorough as possible, as opposed to say ATARI who'd rather release half-arsed patches and abandon both the product and the paying customers after a few months (can you say MoO3 or Temple of Elemental Evil?).

I have one question, is it better than Disciples 3? I am dying for a new game of this sort. 

No offense, but she sounds petty. "Why does the game do X instead of Y?" really isn't a valid criticism if there's no good reason why it shouldn't do X.

Disciplines 3 has some issues and needs a few patches. If you haven't played them, I'd probably look at King's Bounty: The Legend and King's Bounty: Armored Princess. They're lighter than Elemental's design, but really good fun and well done. There are also Fantasy Wars and its sequel Elven Legacy. But these are just vaguely similar games without city building. If that's what you want, I'd wait for Civ5 or look into GalCiv2, if you haven't played it yet.

Completely different game than Disciples 3.  Disciples 3 compares to HOMM. Elemental compares to Civ. If you want a game that mostly focuses on tactical combat, with light strategy elements, look elsewhere.  Elemental is a grand 4x strategy game with light tactical elements.  Despite that game's issues, the tactical combat in Elemental is nowhere near as developed as Disciples 3. Elemental's focus is chiefly on worldmap and kingdom management strategy, which barely exists in Disciples 3 or HOMM.