Part of the problem is that there are places that look like beaches that aren't. You have to mouse over and see beach to be sure, but it is a failing of the game right now that beach areas aren't completely obvious. There also aren't that many of them, but that's a different issue.
This may sound stupid, but it took me awhile to realize that the difference between heroes who've already been recruited by the AI factions and those that are free agents is subtle. They both have a coat of arm/logo in the upper right corner when you click on them, but the one used by free agents is hard to differentiate early on when you haven't memorized the various logos used by your competitors. I missed a lot of heroes in earlier games because I thought they'd already be
There are enough reviews out that we can get a pretty good sense of what most people are seeing with the game. It's a credit to the devs that there is so much praise for what they are attempting and so much confidence that they will eventually get there. But that said, Stardock can't really pretend that the release is meeting critical expectations, either. There are a lot of respected reviewers that have weighed in and unless you think there is a vast conspiracy, it's hard t