I have to disagree about the campaign comment.  Cause someone or a lot of someones are working hard on this.   I for one am looking forward to it.  I love campaigns more in games like HOMM and the like than just playing sandbox. 

It is focused on (I think, that is how it looks from my screen), the campaign is an extra hook to gain in more points I bet it will be interesting to see what they have cooked up reading the bits about it I have, I hope you are surprised by the campaign .

Boy this list thing is hard, I can't promise its 100% accurate.

Top 3

best 1
I really love the theme, the aura of the game, the world filled with dangerous (well, they used to be dangerous ) monsters, magic runs through the land vividly, the elemental shards stream upwards from the ground, being the focus of magic.

2
I was a big fan of Master of Magic, and this game looks pretty much the same, I like the magic + civ parts, enchanting my cities and units, training new armies of units, coordinating a proper unit tactics etc.

3
I must say I am in favour of this game supporting modding in the extend they do, because it will open up new adventures due to opening other peoples mods, it will be grand to see what people cooked up, and to know that if I am disappointed in the something, I can make a personal mod to try and fix it afterwards, so I at least get some moneys worth

Bottom 3

3
The Coding of the AI and the Animals is not quite what I would prefer in the final product, I see the critters of the world running past an undefended outpost to go drink from a lake over there, stuff like that.

2
I have some issues with the map setup, the wildlands seems very end-game, I could rush the maps faster than I could ever gather power to tame the wildlands (if playing optimally), and poor starting locations ruins my fun. (I hate having to click ctrl+n because I know if I start with a 4/2/nothing I will be like a dog-treat to some rampaging faction that will plain look at me hungrily.

worst 1
The scaling in this game is way off, the balance is whack between both grain/material/essence, and the balance between units/armour/hp/accuracy/dodge currently doesn't seem like its going to be anywhere near awesome at release
(I might just be looking at it pessimisticly though).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Like:

1. The mix between RPG and Grand Strategy

2. Being able to customize pretty much everything

3. Resources and world map improvements

Dislike:

1. The balance of armies such as between Soldier and Champion. Multiplying attack means late game armies are extremely lethal but early game they're almost entirely useless compared to heroes. Monsters from the later techs are also rather useless once you obtain them.

2. Monsters aren't monstery enough. The RPG elements in general are too passive or random and need tighter behavior (bandits raid trade routes, creatures protect their lairs instead of walking off when ZoC pops over them, dragons occasionally go around razing outposts/resources, etc).

3. Lack of sieges, walls, and other things which make assaulting a city special as opposed to the blank tactical map we get now.

Cool lists so far.

I've never been much of a modder myself (always took what the develper gave me). Great to see that Stardock is entertaining modding interests aswell....and from the simplicity shown in the examples...I may just give FE some tweaks of my own.

The best thing about easily moddable games are the 100's of different mods you will be able to find, and try out, if there are 100 mods, atleast one of them will get some cool ideas

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Some wildlands are useful- it's a great way to level up heroes.  So I wouldn't call them useless, except for fighting guardians.

Right now- I feel essence is OP, especially early game.   Grain is underpowered.  I'd rather have a 2/4/3 early game over a 5/2/1.

Best

1. Modding is insanely easy on the surface

2. I love the wildlands and the monsters roaming the wastes

3. I love the unit designer that allows me to customize units down to their bracers

Worst

1. Lots of bad UI issues https://forums.elementalgame.com/430530

2. I wanted sieges, got something half-assed instead

3. No scripting for modding

I might need to make room on my list for this one. It's a rather glaring gap in FE's modding capabilities.

Still coming with excellant top/bottom concept! Solid!

I smile inside when I see a concept  on someone's top list, but that very same concept on someone else's bottom list. Show's that a ) you can't please everybody, and b ) different people are looking for different things in the game.

To summerize, here are the concepts mentioned so far:

Top List: Shards, Cities, Essence, Sovereigns, Wildlands, Cities, Campaign, Theme, MoM, Modding, Concept, Customizable, Improvements, Lore, Modding, Theme, Cloth Map, Tatical Combat, Customizable, Theme, Lore, Cities, Modding, Wildlands, Unit Design System, Diversity, Modding, Wildlands, Lore, Faction Variation, Special Spells, Leveling,

Bottom List: Wildlands, Campaign, Store, Magic Balance, Pioneer Spam, Store, AI, Map Generation, Balance Issues, Soldier/Champion Balance, Tame Monsters, Sieges, Early-Late Game Scaling, Unit Design System, Terrain Variety, No Dynasty, Monster Lair ZoC, Early-Late Game Scaling, Unit Design System, Unit Stacks, Essence, Grain, Campaign, UI Issues, Sieges, Scripts for Modding, Faction Variation, Sieges, Soldier/Champion Balance, Monster Behaviour, Tame Monsters, Unit Upgrades,

Putting together a tally, here are the number of times the following concepts have been mentioned (for better or for worse):

• Shards:                 1 / 0
• Cities:                   3 / 0
• Essence:               1 / 1
• Sovereigns:           1 / 0
• Wildlands:             3 / 1
• Campaign:            1 / 2
• Theme:                 3 / 0
• MoM:                     1 / 0
• Modding:               4 / 0
• Concept:               1 / 0
• Customizable:       2 / 0
• Improvements:     1 / 0
• Lore:                     3 / 0
• Cloth Map:            1 / 0
• Tatical Combat:    1 / 0
• Unit Design:         1 / 2
• Diversity:              1 / 0
• Faction Variation: 1 / 1
• Special Spells:      1 / 0
• Leveling:              1 / 0
• Store:                   0 / 2
• Balance (all types): 0 / 5
• Pioneer Spam:      0 / 1
• AI:                        0 / 1
• Map Generation:  0 / 1
• Tame Monsters:   0 / 2
• Sieges:                0 / 3
• Game Scaling:      0 / 2
• Terrian Variety:    0 / 1
• No Dynasty:         0 / 1
• Monster Lair ZoC: 0 / 1
• Unit Stacks:          0 / 1
• Grain:                   0 / 1
• UI Issues:            0 / 1
• Scripts:                 0 / 1

Let's keep 'em coming!

Best:

1. Modding is epic. The quest system allows for real in depth storytelling. The xml is easy to read, change, balance to each person's preference.

2. RPG in a TBS. Officially better than a Tur[turkey]key

3. Wildlands. Such a great concept. It brings alot of depth to each map.

Worst:

1. Balance is still way off. I have an entire mod of balance changes to keep playing the game. Not a good sign.

2. Potential of adding campaigns as sandbox quests is not fully realized. Jon Shafer should have been making an epic quest that blends right into the game. That should have been the Masterquest.

3. Pathing system for heroes is not fully realized. Why was Baldur's gate not copied verbatim into the leveling system? Huge mistake.

Rebuttal: 

The worst list for me is easily fixed by number 1 in the best list.

My list (+/- 30 hours sofar so still rather freshfaced), also I will forgo the obvious one of idea/setup/theme, as its a foregone conclusion (why would I start playing it otherwise )

Also listing is hard as there is a LOT I like, but these come to mind easiest:

1) Citybuilding, awesome setup, love the way u can specialise, and still have valid choices later on down the tree should it be required to switch focus  (like being able to build troops in research city with 25% extra xp gain - was I think choice on lvl 3 or 4) - even if I dislike some of the bugs like not being ablo to build a forrest lumber mill again once u have deleted it from buildingque, as forrest is suddenly not in direct contact with city anymore

2) Absolute freedom in customization, ranging from modding to troop design, love the absolute openess

3) The difference in race setup, most have a different theme (even if I think some of them arrive a bit late in the research tree to make them viable for the (atm at least) crucial early game (juggernauts I think arrive quite late for example, while abslute powerhouses they arrive only mid/late game) - but even that is ok, as it will have to be reflected in ur playstyle, turtle until u hit the tech and then boom)

Dislike:

1) Stupidity of AI is quite offputting (Several AI stacks (like 6 or 7 armies of 6 units each all on same spot) sitting still for rounds on end on same spot allowing my Sov to nuke one stack after the other - only with the last 2 AI starts to actually do something), which goes hand in hand with the terrible handling of monsters in the wilds (both of which I assume is on hold for improvement)

2) Documentation of what is what, I realize its Beta, but some list of for example keymapping in options or as an enclosed pdf would be  awesome, or the concept that some researches are random from the start, took me forever to figure out why I could not cast some spells, even if I had the req's)

3) Mid to late game becomes boring! As awesome as the beginning is, later on there is no more feeling of accomplishment, just disgust at stupidity of AI (am playing at ridiculous with research set to hard, and still my sov (custombuild with masterscout and able to arcane towers for rapid expansion) is mopping the floor with the AI, even though I'm at bottom of powertree - the only hard time was from the start, when my sov was lowlevel and one hit could kill him

Honorable mention to:

a) Finally a tactical combat again (even if its meh sofar - too much and too little mobility I think, standing still while hitting should make a difference, maybe better accuracy or hit 2x, so if u playing a mobile bow, u shoot with less acc once u move but u get hit less often if u do etc - if we forget for a sec about the stupid AI who only advances one spot per turn to keep defending until it can charge - that against a magic user where defense has no impact as far as I can see)

b)The concept of the dangerous wildlands, love that, but needs to be much more dangerous, no more juicy afternoon snack pioneer walking past dragon hoard without a care, both for AI and 'Masterscout' too

Will stop here but could go on, love the game as such, but still needs quite a bit of love