Recent reviews by pattern

Large maps are nowhere to be seen. The "large" maps in game are at best medium size. Game is mostly CQB maps and meatgrind gameplay. Not what was promisied in the Beta. Season 1 update also not what was promised and it's clear they now feel that once the release has been done they can just go ahead and do exactly the opposite of what their marketing said before release.

The UI is a horrible horrible mess.

Battlefield is not back.

It's not better then Doom or Doom: Eternal but it's alright and it sure is pretty. It's plays more like Quake 1/2 to me then Doom due to the medieval stuff and the level designs. I think a better move would have been to embrace that and just make it a new Quake. Save the Doom brand for the next proper sci-fi one.

The story and cut scenes are confusing and it feels like they are skipping dialog or something sometimes. It doesn't really seem coherent with what the slayer is tasked to do in the following level.

The flying sections are garbage and completely unnecessary. It adds nothing to the game except a bit of filler. They are not fun to play in the slightest and the flying combat is repetitive and 0-fun.

Likewise the Mech sections are also just filler. Could've easily just been a cut scene. First one was a bit neat walking through buildings etc. but after that it adds nothing, just a slow ass click-to-punch and punch again mini-game.

With (or without) Path Tracing this is one of the prettiest games out right now. It's also very well optimised from what I can tell. Runs great with everything maxed and path tracing on my RTX5080 with a sub-optimal Ryzen7 5800X. Some of the first levels seemed a bit too dark, like not properly lit, at first. But it seems to work better with Path Tracing on.

Other then that you pretty much get what you want from this game. Combat is mostly fun and most of the weapons are fun. I could've gone without a shield though. It makes it feel too defensive having to be forced to block all the enemies attacks all the time (95% of which now are either hit-scan which damage you immedietly if you are not holding block or homing projectiles).

Now that they patched the audio mix the audio is also great.

Fantastic game! Very well crafted, brilliant attention to detail all around. Old-school good game!

This is definetly a game I can see that I will spend a few hundred hours on and I'm not even done with my first playthrough!

Glad to see they've returned to the classical formula! THIS is exactly what we want. Best tower defense out there.

An excellent sequel! Different but still familiar. Scratches the same itches and plays very similarly but on a more macro scale. Everything I liked about Frostpunk 1 is still here in it's own way.

I love spreading managed democracy!

Update for Bridges & Ports. 2 Years after original release:

Is the game better? Yes. There are many issues still but it is playable now. It's mostly a City Painter at this point but at least most of the game breaking simulation issues seems to have been fixed with the latest DLC.

Performance: Pretty much the same as release.
If you want to run 100k+ pop large cities you will NEED an 9800X3D CPU. Otherwise be prepared for snail-pace simulation speed as the game is VERY CPU hungry with larger populations. I'm running a Ryzen 7 5800X and it's just not enough.. Very CPU limited at later stages.

Graphics: Improved from release due to the addition of DLSS. Otherwise same. It's a heavy game to run. Not very optimised so you will need a beefy setup. Also important to not run the default settings.

My setup is a RTX 5080 so very beefy for what this game is. DLSS was added thank science! And if you are able to force the new DLSS-model in the Nvidia App image quality will actually be fantastic! Otherwise remember to turn off the default resolution scaling, it will make everything look like pixel soup.

I'm playing at 4K with DLLS on Max Performance and it's decently sharp. Quality mode is very sharp! Be aware that Global Illumination and Fog are very heavy to run, and if you set them to low they are very noisy. So my recommendation is High until your city is too big and then disable both completely.

Mods: Huge selection! And essential for the game. Anarchy, Traffic, Surfaces and decals etc.
They have also released some fantastic community asset packs that are absolutely essential. So many more assets for different services and zone types. Must Have! No official support for custom assets yet though, no asset editor, which is frankly embarrasing.

The UI is a mess, player progression takes a while to get going, graphics are great interior wise, gear and weapons look cool, but environments are definitely behind par. Performance isn't great even with a beefy GPU buuut if you enjoyed Fallout 4 and other Bethesda titles you will likely enjoy this. So many quests and people to talk to your head will spin. It's far from perfect (as expected) but it is fun.

Stay far FAR away from Take Two and Intercept Games. They bought the IP to KSP and ruined it. It was all a big scam...

No actual developers remain to work on the game (they closed the entire studio) so effectively it's dead in the water. That fact that you can still buy this is baffling.

See this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1chdo9l/its_over/

I don't need to tell you this game is worth it, It's a fantastic game! Amazingly made by one person somehow. Get it.