I was recently reading reviews of Elemental War of Magic this one decided to make me say this.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103243-Stardock-Calls-Elemental-War-of-Magic-a-Complete-Fail

Let me say when I first found out about Elemental, a long time ago, I was excited that someone would try to re-capture an old classic that I loved, when I pre-ordered the game I played on the cloth map over and over crashing and going step by step through the betas seeing the changes, up till beta 4 which seemed closer to the real game. When the game was released, I wasn't disappointed I didn't even feel that it was close to a fail.

 Yes I do agree that the game has some features that I would like, or tweaks here and there but I would have to say that its far from being a bad game, especially held up on the shelf against countless other titles I have purchased, man I had more fun playing Beta 1 of this game then a week of playing APB which sucks horribly bad don't buy it.

I can see maybe people on the outside saying hey this game has some bugs, and I wish this was there and that was like this, and so on. However for those of us that have participated in the Beta, all the way through, and seeing what the game came from to the countless hours the devs put into it to help meet the things this community has asked for and how they have continued to strive to help the game evolve into what it will inevitably be I can't see how anyone would have anything but excitement for what the future has in store.

The Escapist says

"but those that have played the game have come up with a list of complaints, saying it's unpolished, over-ambitious, and that it has poor documentation."

Maybe the game has a bit of polishing to do, but there has not been a game I've purchased in my 25 years gaming that it doesn't take till at least patch 1.2 for it to be set.

Over-Ambitious - Good I'm sick of game company's charging me 65$ for a game I can make in 10 mins in Macromedia flash, that makes me want to kill myself 20 mins in. I will continue to support Stardock in their development of Elemental because they did what other company's refuse to do and that is take the risk to make something that we will actually like, and isn't just some graphically differential cut and paste RTS strategy game.  

Poor-Documentation - The game took me 5 mins to understand how to play, who needs documentation, (Of course I never read game books)

I just want to say I've bought a lot of crap games in the last year, and this is not one of them I like it way better then Civilization which is the same game over and over with new graphics and a few minor tweeks but everyone hails it as the best thing ever, oooo number 5 has hexagonal tiles. And all of us knew we were talking about it the whole time that the game will change over and over, and that the team is committed to it for the next year, and Elemental for once, took everything I liked about Masters of Magic, and actually added things that made it better, like the combat system, and rpg character development, and the dynasty system. (Like I said I hate when game company's just dupe game genre's over and over with updated graphics (for example every FPS ever made))

Anyway Good work to the Elemental Team : If this is your epic fail, please keep failing.