"Everything in Fallen Enchantress is still bland and uninteresting..."

I smell a thread lock in the future.

Well, most people (myself included) find late-game heroes overpowered, so I'm not sure what the reviewer is thinking there. Personally, I haven't found too much issue in the attack/defense balance, but I haven't played too extensively. Generally speaking, though, in some match-ups the defense is essentially negligible and sometimes it's a low-damage slugfest.

I do agree with the level-up trait selection, to a point--see my other post on having a Kingdom life-mage as an Empire. I find it only occasionally frustrating.

If I had to guess, I'd say the reviewer only played one or max 2 games. And I have to disagree with MoM being better. I think people seriously fail to recognize their own nostalgia. I found the replay value in MoM to be very little, largely because the AI couldn't handle the large number of options in the game (which is exactly what made those first few games of MoM so fun).

Where did you read this ? It looks completely unprofessional, just a bunch of whining, no real objective points to make and half of it is this person saying how they feel it should have been rather than pointing out what is is, thus making this more of a rant and less of a review.

The guy doesn't know how to play the game and blames the game for his failure to win it... Worthless review imho.

I don't see any false information. Some of it is pure opinion which is subjective.

There's a bit of truth, a few plain errors, and a lot of lack of game knowledge in that paragraph.

True, because of many bugs that give low difficculty AIs bonuses that they should not get.

Nonsense. There are people who think that games should work they way they want, instead of them learning to play by the games' rules.

Insufficient understanding and experience with the game.

Sorta of true.  I find it stupid that I should pay cash for what I can produce, instead of materials and production.  It makes no sense that armoring a soldier is different from armoring a champion.

Ridiculous.  My heroes are always head and shoulders above troops, enemy or friendly, at absolutely every point of the game.  This is a guy who does not level his heroes right.

Very good point.

Overstatement, but an understandable overstatement.  I have seen people leave a martial art club because they did not want to learn to protect their legs.  This is a guy who likes being good at MoM (which has its own cartload of problems) and hates having to learn a new game.

Actually, the 'reviewer' doesn't seem to understand even the most basic game mechanics, so who can really take them seriously?

Perhaps tiny granules of it. Honestly, after playing and enjoying this game, I'd never trust this reviewer ever again. That of course is entirely my opinion, some people just don't like games that others do like. Reading his review, he doesn't like games I do, so that makes him untrustworthy as a reviewer for me.

For others, this may be a spot on review, and you may be able to set your metaphorical "watch" by his reviews.

There are some design decisions made in this game that some people just hate. The random traits is a big one. I absolutely love it, I prefer not going into a game knowing exactly what order I'll be able to pick traits as I level. I appreciate having to possibly change strategy as you go because the trait you want didn't pop up yet/ever. YMMV.

I'm not sure this person even understands how this game works in the attack and defense department. First off there is no multiplication of units, each attack is computed seperately in the stack. Namely when the card say 1 - 3 attack X 3 units... it's really roll 3d3 and that is the attack (after each member of the unit rolls an attack chance).

The attack is computed as (Attack - Defense) per unit if a strike occurs for that unit.

If you really are going to complain about the mechanics of the game, first understand the mechanics in the game.

Also, I don't know why the review person couldn't afford plate armor, but I can afford a piece of plate armor (usually I don't have to because I find it).

Heros the only interesting part of the game??? I don't know about that, dragons aren't heros but they are pretty interesting... juggernauts those beasts are intersting (at least to me). Hey I purchased this game on the sole fact that I can build a multi-tile city (oh yeah, and Stardock is a good company).

Building in a few random locations BONUS, because it fits in with the lore of the game. If you could just plant a city anywhere, then how does this reflect the lore in the game of being post appocalyptic. At least it is trying to maintain the setting, plus you can set up a map where you can settle everywhere.

The abilities coming up seeming randomly. This is true that the level ups are somewhat random and so this may be the only complaint on this review that I can accept. Although, the choices seem random, the system is rather elegant and is better than well of all the traits I need to take these 7 traits because these are the best traits of the game and the only way to win. But to each their own.

Finally this review post looks really familiar... I could swear I've seen this in the forums during the beta.

And I'd have to largely disagree with your "opinion" of MOM. MOM is still the greatest overall fantasy strategy game out there and HOMM II & III come in 2nd still. MOM has ATMOSPHERE and COLOR and great MUSIC. This game is far from it still. I found the replay value in MOM to be quite a LOT over the past 20 years and I've played it many times and still play it and most especially after the ai update of 140h which really improves the way the ai plays. The other things MOM has going for it are different RACIAL factions. Kind of boring in this game just to play humaaans. 

There's one huge difference between MoM and FE: in MoM it was difficult to lose a game. Even on Impossible where the opponent wizards got 15 spellbooks or whatever, the A.I. was a pushover. In FE the A.I. is actually working and working well.

I've always thought the equation should be (attack * #units) - (defense * #units), with probability of landing this much damage being (accuracy + crit chance - dodge)/100.  Crit probability, if a successful hit, should then be crit/100.

The Attack and Defense balance was pretty bad in earlier beta but I don't find them bad now. I think the Devs did a good job with that.

I do agree that the graphics don't look good but they are not has bad as MOM's graphics. I just hate the style but I got over that. And I would say that AOW:SM looks better than FE.  I'll Also say that right now  AOW:SM  (with the players pathes and my units and additions) is still a better game over all than FE Vanilla 1.0. 

And I will say the Heros and magic items are better in that game (I've got litterly 1000's of magic items and hundreds of heros) than in FE. They get more a selection on leveling and the Hero and Magic item editor are easy to use.

Now saying that I think that the Modibility (is that a word) of FE has teh potential to make FE shine. And I look forward to what the moding community comes up with.

Speaking of modding is there a central location to check these mods out?

I will disagree with you on this one. I would say the greatest overall fantasy strategy game out there is AOW:SM (with player patches.) Was never impressed with with any of the HOM series, but we each have different opinons. I look at AOW and AOW:SM as better versions of MOM.

And I still play AOW:SM a lot these days both Single and multiplayer.

For now, the best bet is the Modding forum:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/forum/1008

Why discussing an unprofessionell usercritic from metacritic.com?

Don't think the review needs much analysis. Some people are unintelligent. Because we are the apex predator on the planet, they often erroneously believe themselves to be intelligent. There is no reason to correct their mistake, since to this sort of person, a correction would only prove their intelligence to them. And so the troll is born.

Yeah, and the criticism is entirely deserved here honestly, since the issue has been reported several times during the beta, but they just plain dismissed it and released anyway. It took your own "professional", comprehensive investigative work for the reports to be taken seriously. Could have been handled a lot better by the devs: after all, reviewers (professional or not) cannot be forced to wait for the next patch.

Another of the things I really don't like. A degree of randomness is necessary, total randomness kills my involvement. 

Better gameplay, no doubt at all imho, and not just that. But better graphics, no, that's just hyperbole.

That answers the most important question I had.

You know if they had just taken advantage of terrains a little more, added some spice between empires and kingdoms, something besides "We'z all the same and We'z all boring"

Well then at least one empire could be distinguished from the next.

This whole Empire vs Kingdom thing was a STUPID IDEA. The factions are all BORING. All the bases look the same, there are only two flavors of usable terrain out of several terrain types that could have been used, everything is so BORING and just the slightest of changes could have spiced things up.

Why not allow us to choose the terrain of our kingdom or empire when creating a new faction, why not have spells that change the terrain of our kingdom or empire with bonuses that go on equipment or can be added via global spell enchantments, so a spell to transform your domain into an ice age could combine with spells that give bonuses to everyone in snow in your domain? How about permanent volcanoes and magic to permanently control the weather, magic to cause lasting flooding and other neat effects that we can see on the map. Stuff that won't just be erased the next turn or be utterly pointless and bereft of any difference from the rest of the world. Why not have a spell that expands forests and a Kingdom that specializes in building in/on forest tiles? Why not have a kingdom or empire that specializes on using the Ice that gets bonuses in Arctic and major penalties in Desert, or an empire or Kingdom that's the opposite?

Things like this, just little changes on the User End, would make all the difference.

Stardock seems stuck in Mechanics End thinking, unable to think in terms of the experiences players came into this expecting after it was described as Age of Wonders and Might and Magic on steroids. How's a game so bland from the user end perspective supposed to be the game that lasts for decades?

Hahaha, I read this too, its a fucking player review and it's shit.

Never fear, Xia will speak the truth.

As far as a review, it seems written by someone that is not very familiar with the game.  Most everybody thinks the champions are strong throughout the end of the game, in some cases overpowered.  This review says that cannot compete late game.  That is the complete opposite of almost everyone playing.  I would take this review with a grain salt. 

I would have preferred a more accessible setting. The usual fantasy tropes (elves, dwarfs, 'n orcs) are popular for a reason.

Instead elemental confronts you with a  malazan-style (which I can't stand) lore dump ... almost a parody of such... though I don't think this is intentional 

I'm afraid to say the setting is putting me off. Which is a pity as otherwise the game is pretty much what I was hoping/expecting. A streamlined, "bland" to you haters, master of magic with competitive AI thanks to aforementioned "blandness".

tl;dr good game, but setting tries to do too much with too little.

Wow. My wife said that EXACT same thing, including the 'I can't stand it'.  Heretics!

I actually liked it, before the campaign, which painted the characters as so much less than I had imagined.

I think the Rock/Papers/Scissors review nailed it. This game plays more like a toolkit for modders when it actually should have been a great playing experience 'right out of the box'. I think it has the potential to be a good game after some modding but shouldn't it be a good experience before modding? That being said, I think the ugliness of the game really screws the experience up for me as much as anything else and I'm not sure that's something the modders can fix.

It completely befuddles me that people are calling this game bland, and even ugly.  I find myself engrossed in it, the lore, the gameplay, the characters, and even the graphics art style.  Especially the graphics are style, I couldn't imagine it in any other way.  I wouldn't find it nearly as charming or as engrossing as I do now if its art style was any different.