Alright so I was in a really bad mood yesterday and took it out on Fatindian. (Sorry indian)  In other news, I don't really like some of these reviews. I can only assume some of them are playing the gold version to score it this way. Which of course since thats what "shipped" they have every right to do so.

Most reviewers are reviewing 1.06 and say so in their reviews. I mostly agree with what's been said.

Gameshark:

"The world is generic..."

"A fireball does less damage than your average sword..."

"The tactical battles are never very interesting because so many of the units are basic melee guys and you will have run roughshod over the map before you get to anything interesting. If you use the auto-resolve, the attack rating will be all you need to worry about as hordes of peasants and observers take city after city. Lead the rabble to victory and feel like a king, I suppose. In most cases you don't even need to worry about the AI opponents. They will send out tiny armies or single heroes to take lightly defended cities while you rush on to the capital."

"Elemental is now undercooked with no incentive to keep sitting down to dinner."

Sounds like Elemental to me.

found this review from Papercut Productions on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahTehhLD5ec

final score: 85%

Says singleplayer or multiplayer. so technically you get the promised point on the box. But yeah I know what you mean.

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 to ignore those.

That's not to say that there aren't forum members on various sites who are exagerrating the games flaws.  I'm having fun with it and it hasn't crashed once in hours of gameplay, for example, and yet you'd think the game was an unstable unplayable mess from what some have said.  However, most of us acknowledge (even Stardock based on the already announced patch plans) that there are a lot of ways the game can be improved.

Frankly, it's just getting the reviews that a contingent of beta testers feared back at the end of July.

I've played half a dozen games, one lasting in excess of four hundred turns. There's a lot of potential, enough that I'm excited to see what happens over the next six months, but right now this puppy is still essentially in beta mode at 1.06. For me, the oom and other bugs are less problematic than the anemic dynasty system, anemic magic system, dearth of special abilities, inconsequential differences between factions, not able to switch weapons during combat, not able to upgrade or equip existing units, having to destack units to select them for strategic buffs, not able to clear forests, and a general lack of flavor etc.

If this were the finished game, I wouldn't play another turn. Thank the gods it's not. I think some reviewers (and forum trolls) may have axes to grind, but a lot of the critics are saying the same thing: overhaul Elemental so it lives up to the original vision and it'll be a hell of a game. Meanwhile, it's getting reviewed for its very much unfinished state.

i can actually sort of see quite a lot of this. personally i think the game is guilty of holding back the shiny, fun stuff until it is far too late, or the shiny stuff is just unnecessarry. personally, i think bows, leather armour, shields, small squads, a couple of spells, and a couple of buildings should be available from the get go. it shouldn't about people racing to get these things, it should be about getting BETTER things that makes the game. currently this first 100 turns at least are spent getting to this basic level, which isn't fun.

so far i get the feeling i'm the dominant power (i've conquered a city pretty easily, but i can't be sure since there is no empire comparison screen and scouting is impossible without entering territory and starting a way), yet i still haven't even worked out how to get bows...? (though i'm playing empire, and it's possible they don't even get them). i don't even know what shape the world is.

generally though, i think stardock should be counting their lucky stars as far as reviews go. it's really lucky they have enough goodwill that the big places don't want to review the game yet. so far elemental has yet to earn a reputation amongst gamers as a "bad game," which is cool. given it hasn't even been released physically in europe, i would say the window for a european launch is still wide open.

the people crying sour grapes are really missing the point. reviewers are just people with opinions. being an indie game never stopped gal civ 2 getting great reviews on release, so don't use that "industry influence" line on me. to use a rock band analogy, the only bands who complain about bad album reviews are people like Limp Bizkit, Nickelback and Creed.

the best chance that this game has is for them to sit down and completely rethink the aspects of the game that are supposed to be fun but aren't (casting spells, designing units and fighting battles). the settlement management is actually quite good imho. redesign the interface, make the endgame playable on my quadcore with GeForce 9600, ditch Combat Speed and 1dN and come up with a tutorial. then release that all as a big free patch (give it a shiny new name like Dawn of War did with their Last Stand patch to make it seem like a mini-expansion) and THEN tell people to review that version of the game.

oh, and actually make a trailer so i can show my friends the game  even exists. so far the game's awful publicity has actually worked well in it's favour.

Elemental's going to get a 60 or so metacritic average and you think they should be counting their lucky stars? Only an idiot or asshole would consider that lucky, take your pick. Go out onto Metacritic and look at the types of games that get a 60 metacritic average. MOO 3, a total POS game got in the 60s. 

Elemental has its flaws but it's a masterpiece compared to MOO3 when it launched.  And only became marginally better because of fan patches later. So spare us the hater bullshit that Stardock is somehow getting cut a break. 

The game is getting the reviews it deserves, negative ones, because they released it with bugs, out of memory problems and a UI that's extremely unintuitive.  I find the game fun. A lot of  other people do too. Back when MOO3 shipped you couldn't find anyone having "fun" with the game because there was no fun to be had, when it worked that is. 

The abomination, Temple of Elemental evil has a 71 metacritic average. Even Dungeon Lords got a 45 and that game wasn't even as good as the early Elemental betas. So get some goddamn perspective. 

IGN just issued a statement:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1117649p1.html

MOO3 was judged on the basis of what came in the box and Elemental is being judged on how people imagine it will be in 6 months.

And there aren't enough reviews yet because most reviewers are giving elemental extra time before they review the game

Edit: I'm not saying that metacritic itself is giving them special treatment. I'm saying that most other reviewers are and it's reflected in their metacritic score (or lack thereof).