On Gamespot, the user reviews probably draw more weight, especially if a lot of users review it.   Those are at a 6.3, with only 380 reviews.  Everyone may want to chime in.

And say what?

Most of the criticisms people have are by and large legitimate. What is not helping anyone are the people leaving reviews on that site that are both perfect "10s" which this game clearly is not (and there are several of these), and only saying so only makes people look foolish or like shills, and people giving it 1s out of spite for Elemental being as buggy as it is. More "Fanboi" reviews only hurt the reputation of the game and Stardock further.

Right now, Elemental should score in the 5-7 range (best case), depending on a specific customer's computer ability to run the thing. If they can't run the game at all, or their graphics can't render, less than that. Let's be honest: the AI still stinks, even at the highest levels, there are still too many imbalances for units, there are many spells and knowledge advances that do not work, and there are MANY bugs on the technical side.

No matter how much you like the game, those are fundimental problems that can't be overlooked.

There are still many problems, some of them serious, and flooding a site with inflated review scores helps no one.

As of 1.07, most major issues have been resolved and the game is really fun.  If the game had Sid Meier's name on the box, it would be pulling 8's easily.

I'm not sure that I agree, my impression has been that most of the issues that cause crashes and slowdowns have been fixed, but that the game still has extremely serious gameplay, balance and AI issues which have been barely started to be addressed. Even Frogboy seems to agree with that these days.

...chime in with their honest appraisal of the game, right?

I'll review it when I feel it deserves a 10 (Another month or so). IMO 4.0 is beyond unfair and i've always liked Gamespot. Owell I guess sometimes bad publicity can be good publicity just depends. Keep up the good work Stardock!! and Brad!!

You never played Civ 4 1.00

I'm dissapointed that I cannot say that the 4.0 score was unfair.   We forget so easily how unplayable the boxed version of this game is.  I'd love to see all early purchasers get a 50% discount on any expansion pack, ESPECIALLY if it is stand alone.

Strangely enough I never liked Civ that much.  I played the original and one other.  I found Alpha Centauri much more fun and it was basicly the same formula.

Everyone's opinion varies of course but it seems that with 1.07 many of the stability issues have been addressed for many people.  The game is eminently playable at this time.  I'm 290+ turns into a large map and having a lot of fun.  I would not hold back purchasing at this time but it would be fair to ask in the forum first if anyone else has your particular hardware setup and how it is running for them.  From here on out there should be only steady improvements in an already excellent game.  IMHO of course, yours may vary and so be it.

People still goto gamespot??  Maybe if stardock would slip them some money like Kane and Lynch.....oohhhhh, should I go there???

I'm so glad they are still patching kane and lynch....oh wait......

Give this game some time. I would still support stardock over most companies.

Unfortunately I have to agree with the bad reviews. This game has the potential to be good, but you can't rate a game on potential. Right now, the game is mediocre at best, bad at worst. Still, I am hanging in there in hopes that it will eventually blossom.

As of 1.07, the game seems to be playable.  It is, however, quite boring.  The world is bland.  The mechanics are simplistic and lackluster (or worse, depending on which mechanic one was looking at).  The AI is moronic.  I'm not familiar with the prevailing scale of the review system in question, I don't typically review games on gaming sites, and such scales are always a bit vague, but I would have guessed Elemental would rate about a 5.0 as of 1.07.  It's playable, and it's fun for the first 10-20 hours while you don't yet know how the game works.  Then it's boring.  For me at least.