Honestly, I think your review is overly harsh for little reason. While I am not one who believes the game should get a 10/10, it is a solid game which should probably rate around 8 to 8.5 range. Going through your main points, I will agree that the UI is a bit daunting to the uninitiated, but since most of the screens and data can simply be ignored via massive amounts of in-game automation, this becomes more of an annoyance for those who already want to get their hands dirty with all the various numbers and stats. One of your UI points was a monitoring panel of some kind, which the expansion added more streamlined panel to allow for you to have easy access to this data.  As for your point about the dated 2D graphics, I think your claims are ultimately baseless. Distant Worlds is a game that allows the player to enter a galaxy which can house over 1000 star systems, while also allowing the UI to zoom from the full galaxy display to a ship orbiting a single moon without a single load screen or pause. While this may be similar to Sins of a Solar Empire, a large map in Sins is about 4 star systems compared to the 1000+ available in Distant Worlds. As a design decision, 3D would actually hurt the game as it would require a massive amount of computations that are better spent on the game mechanics. Lastly, your point about the public/private sector divisions seems a bit silly, and you ultimately do not discuss the matter for any real length. While the player do not have direct control over the exact movement of resources or population in the empire, the player does have the ability to decide what resources are mined directly, where to place star ports for resources to be deposited, what races/empires to have trade treaties with, etc. Honestly, I could not imagine trying to control the hundreds of freighters in my empire after the first couple of years in the game, nor would I even want to.

What I really find funny is that you don't even discuss the parts that are actually lacking at all. The worst parts of the original DW are probably the lack luster AI and the dubious research system. Honestly, I would grab the expansion and rewrite your review. I think you would find it a much more pleasing experience.

I guess I am lucky in that I didn't find the graphics or the User Interface issues enough for me to dislike the game.  Underneath the tough interface (which is actually a pretty good interface now with the expansion) the game is superb, very complex but at the same time very accessible even from the beginning because of being able to automate so much.

I love shiny grahics but I'm really glad that I am still able to enjoy a good game even when the graphics are 2D and basic like in Distant Worlds.

It's amazing how game reviews can become just completely subjective opinions and entirely swung by the reviewers preferences in games.  This isn't a pop at you but I'm damn glad I never read this review before buying the game or I would have probably missed out on one of the best games I have played in recent times.

My take on the review is exactly what OP pointed out, you either love it or hate it. As I read the review I felt it was well reasoned and he clearly stated his expectations and why they were not met. I think many people just can't get past the 2D graphics. I don't mind them because I find the game engaging and rich. But then I play and enjoy some games that make DW look like a cutting edge graphical masterpiece. I love eye-candy just as much as anyone and would love a Masters of a Solar Orion Empire hybrid. I also agree the RotS expansion may address the information access problems and cleans up some of the advisor pop ups with a message menu moved to the right side of the screen. But the screen is busy and you need to mouse over the icons and wait for the pop up help to tell you what the button does. After a while I suppose I'll have it memorized.

DW need to be checked out. It really needs a demo. There are still people coming to the DW forum saying things like "Wow. I'm so glad I found this game. I've never heard of it until now." Some game just fly in under the radar. Sins was that way for me. It had been out a year before I had heard of it and the only reason I had found it was because I was Googling about DRM and Sins kept popping up as the example of a hit selling game with no DRM. So at least Adamsolo's review is out and generating a dialog about Distant Worlds. I don't agree with the score. I would rate it an 8 or higher. I do agree that some expectations may not be met.

I also agree with not trusting all reviews and making up your own mind. I might have missed out on Armada 2526, which I also enjoy, if I had listened to the general buzz on the Internet about the game. Again a demo would help.

Count me in as another person who absolutely loves loves loves DW.  Why do I love it?  For a handful of reasons:

1) In a world of 4X games that are all essentially the same as each other (build up as fast as possible and crush everything in your path), DW breaks the mold by being an unabashedly complex sandbox.  I personally love that I can play the game without the goal of conquering the galaxy (I usually play with victory conditions turned off).  It gives the whole thing a Europa Universalis in Space feel, which is a good thing if you, like me, are a huge EU fan.  The result is more of a role-playing experience (role-playing leader of X alien species) than a "must optimize my play style" experience.

2) On a related note, the level of customization at the game start is amazing.  If you want, you can play in a galaxy with lots of pirates, and advanced interstellar empires as a small, new-to-space civilization trying to make it.  Or you can start in galaxy teeming with independent colonies, as an advanced technological civilization that hasn't expanded.  Or you can... and so on.  The options are incredible, if you take the time to tweak your starting situation.

3) The automation is fantastic.  Don't want to manage something?  Let the AI do it.  It adds even more spice to gameplay.  Sure, you can control everything, but you can also, say, leave your entire war machine to the computer, focusing on research and ship design.  Or you could do it the other way around.  Either way, there's added challenge and, I would say, fun in playing a limited role.  Hell, you can even design yourself a single uber-ship and fly it around doing solo pirate raids if you want, leaving the rest of your empire to the AI.

4) The economic system is so wonderfully in-depth, principally because it is not nearly as abstracted as in other games, whilst not being something you have to micromanage.  I absolutely love that every component you build requires actual specific resources to get built.

As for the game's weaknesses...

1) The graphics may not be anything special, but they don't need to be.  As another poster points out, DW in 3D would be a computing nightmare and, I might add, a player's nightmare.  Consider Majesty and Majesty 2.  The latter is a more polished game in many ways (fewer exploits, more challenging campaign), but being in 3D gives it no advantage over the original Majesty, which was an ugly 2D game that is, nevertheless, extremely functional.  Or consider almost any Paradox game.  3D for EU3?  No thank you, it would only get in the way.  When I consider a DW merged with, say, Sword of the Stars, it just makes my head hurt (since that SotS galaxy map gives me the spins already) and my GPU burn.

2) It is true that the AI is still a work in progress, as well, but that's to be expected in such a complex game with such a small development team behind it.  The AI is, despite its imperfections, certainly competent enough to give you a game, especially if you don't purposely try to use its weaknesses against it.

3) As others have pointed out, the UI and research trees have been greatly improved in the expansion.  Also, they've fine-tuned automation.

4) My biggest gripe, still, is the ship design screen.  It's just too bland and cluttered.  There's not really a good way to tell if you're putting too much or too little of a given component in a design, and there's no good way to compare designs while you're in the process of designing (unless there's something I don't know).  So I mostly leave design to the AI, except if I need a very specific ship for a specific purpose.

I think, though, that DW is a polarizing game because of how different it is from the accepted mainstream.  It is a game that chooses inferior graphics and greater complexity instead of being shiny and streamlined and easy to play.  But it doesn't make those choices out of laziness.  Rather, it is a "throwback" only in the sense that it looks old; it is instead as if someone retreated 10 years, and then said "what can we do with all of the increased computing resources since 2000 besides making the game look better?"  The answer: huge galaxies with thousands and thousands of civilian ships simulating a real galactic economy of 20 space empires, all running in real time, and zoom-able so that the whole thing takes place on a single map.

So yeah, I'm a fan, if only because so few developers choose to make games in the way that the DW team is making DW.

I have always described DW as a Strategy / Sim.  Depending on how you play, it can be more strategy or sim.  Based on your review, I think you are more of a strategy guy, because some of your points are subjective.  I love strategy games, but I also love sandbox style sims, so the private sector didn't bother me at all.  I also have no problems with the graphics.  The graphics are perfectly adequate for gameplay, which is fairly unique.  Better graphics would have been nice, but the underlying game is what is important.

That said, it does have some flaws, some of which were fixed by the expansion, such as the improved UI and technology tree.  I'd still like to see a bit more variety for ship weapons and defenses, but the Expansion tech tree is decent.

For me the most interesting stage of the game is when your empire is still small enough to be jockeying for access to different resources.  At some stage, you pretty much have access to all the strategic resources as well as enough luxury resources, and the game becomes about either war or at least maintaining your empire and improving your relations.

Pretty much all of the strategic resources are needed to function as a late game empire and build advanced technology ships.  I would have liked to see more strategic options where specific resources conveyed specific technology or weapon benefits.  While there are some specific resource dependencies for some weapons, there is also a lot of overlap, and late game empires generally don't have much trouble finding what they need, as long as they can protect the private sector infrastructure adequately.  It is more of a logistics problem than an "access to the resource" problem, such as what you would find in Civilization.

Luckily, people can do a lot to tailor the game to their liking with the game start settings.  I tweak mine for less planets to colonize in medium sized galaxies with a lot of races.  That way there is more jockeying for resources and expansion worlds and more benefits to trade or conquest to secure enough resources.

DW is a really fantastic gem in the rough with unique gameplay.  It wasn't fair to compare it to MOO 3. 

Like EmersonPF said:

Distant World = Europa Universalis (III) in Space. Including the bad UI.

You either like the concept of macro management, goalless, sandbox games or you don't.

Many interesting and valid points made by many posters.  I enjoy DW, with the expansion.  I haven't played vanilla DW, (un-expanded.. LOL) so its difficult to gage some of the reviewers statements and some  of the responses.

While i disagree with **some** the 'harshness' of the reviewers comments, I also agree that the game has its issues.  (more later)   I commend the reviewer for doing a review, and giving us all the opportunity to discuss DW.

First, i hate RTS games.  Why?  I'm mid 50's and have ostio arthritis in my fingers.  I do continue clarinet lessons, and force my fingers to do things (no wise cracks here, please).  I am grateful its ostio, and not rheumatoid.

mbaron888' reply #13, and das 123 (above) crystallizes the reason i enjoy DW (w/expansion).   DW allows a wonderful variety of levels of customization (read automation).  Users are not forced to play DW as a RTS if they so chose.  That rocks!

several specifics.

 1) I have no problem with the fuel / refuel aspect of the game.  It just forces a player to actually consider that his/her 'navy' is not totally self contained, and does rely on a logistics chain.

2) The game stinks on implementing one aspect of long range scanners.  If a hostile fleet is in-bound to one of my colonized planets, ('vectoring' as the game says) even with ships/fleet fully equipped with scanners, and even with the hostile fleet fully and continually in scanner range, interception doesn't work.  Said fleet will politely ignore the enemy, even when adjacent, and focus on the position the enemy was at when the intercept order was given. I have to deploy my ships to the target colony and prepare an warm welcome.  (Yes, i know its 'warp' speed.) Thats disappointing to me.

3) DW has more than enough to have repeated re playability.

I enjoy DW and have suggested several of its features as ways to enhance EWOM.  My two galactic credits.

I love Distant Worlds and the expansion because:

+ Options and more options

+ Automation: everything automated or nothing at all

+ Private sectors: making the galaxy alive!

+ Fuel system: one must know how to plan ahead as in thinking strategically, not tactically.  I, however, want the developer to shrink the range of the ship.  I don't want to travel half a galaxy at the start of the game.

Well, I guess I belong to the "love it" group.  As a warning: if you love Sins then you might hate Distant Worlds.  They are considered real time 4X but not the same like your left and right hand.

[quote ]
Boy I would love to hear some examples.
[/quote]'

Dwarf Fortress. Quite possibly the best game-simulation ever created. Uses only ascii graphics (although I use a sprite graphics pack).

Them's fightin' words.

Neither MOO nor MOO2 are any Holy Grails. Both were great games when released, but they are rather outdated now. Though they are still fun to play. I have not tried DW, though I am familiar with SSI/Matrix. I recently downloaded and tried the Steel Panthers edition they offer, Steel Panthers:World At War, and the game is garbage. Great ideas very, very poorly implemented, as with the original. There is no AI, just very cheesy cheat codes. Basically the same as the original Steel Panthers with all the bogus unit tech details and cheats instead of a competent AI. From what I've seen about DW, it doesn't seem like these guys have mended their ways very much.

I think the same happened for me, the first impression was so bad that ruined my experiences with the game from that point forward irreversibly. The major problem is as you summarize, DW isn't fun or engaging. But as I said I'm willing to give it another shot. This weekend I'm going to install and play the expansion (Distant Worlds: Return of the Shakturi) with no formed expectations. I'll let you know how it went.

PS: By the way, you are all invited to vote on my blog week's poll. Question (appropriately): "What do you think about Distant Worlds (the original title, excluding the expansion)"

Link: http://www.spacesector.com (the poll is in the column to the right just below the facebook plugin.