I didn't play during the initial (and unsurprising) release fiasco, but playing now all I can say is wow -- there are some incredibly baffling design choices here. I honestly find it hard to believe that a AAA game company could let these things go unaddressed in a $60 title after nearly, what, three years?

For example: I'm not sure why exactly DICE/EA decided not to include a team auto-balancing feature. It is definitely a puzzling decision considering the vast majority of matches you play will be completely lopsided just due to basic things, like general skill or level disparity, on the rare occasion the match isn't already incredibly lopsided due to the presence of a cheater or a couple squads of max level tryhards. I wouldn't really have my feathers ruffled about the latter under normal circumstances. But with the trainwreck circumstances of the-rest-that-is-BF5, these factors show how a game built primarily around multiplayer absolutely depends on a skill-diverse playerbase to keep the learning curve within a margin of acceptability that does not immediately dissuade newer players. To push them to continue playing. The incomprehensible choice to exclude any sort of balancing has rapidly hastened BF5's multiplayer death spiral as an inconsistent playerbase begets an even more inconsistent playerbase. On a Saturday night, as of the date of this review, there might only be one lobby of Breakthrough with a 10-20 minute queue to enter - partially thanks to EA's continued affinity for splitting the player base via intentionally disruptive DLC, and partially thanks to EA's absolutely horrid matchmaking system and "advanced search system" (which I can only assume they cannot call a 'server browser' for reasons relating to legal liability). The "Quick Play" button may as well be useless for nine times out of ten it will place you into a lobby of 2-3 players just as quick to hit the 'quit' button as you.

I didn't mean to gloss over the cheater problem above, because the scale of the issue is simply unacceptable, let alone in a $60 release. I'm not just complaining about people who are good, either; I'm talking very genuine and obvious cheating, spinbots and 165-0 K/Ds, that sort of thing. With seemingly zero admin presence in the public lobbies, or any effective anti-cheat systems in place, the start of a cheater's masturbatory spree will just lead to a server slowly bleeding to death as players gradually realize "oh, this lobby is ruined," and go on to the next - only for that lobby to hit the same problem a few matches later. I really can't overstate how common cheaters are in this game, and how much time you will spend shuffling between lobbies to find one that isn't a waste of your time.

The most egregious example of just baffling awfulness, though, is in the chat feature - which is beyond a doubt the absolute worst chat system I have seen in any online game. Period. I have no idea how something as simple as a chat could have been so incompetently implemented. I thought that, maybe the chat feature was something they only realized they needed a few hours before release, and so they had the intern quickly code one in? But then you realize much more conscious thought must have been put into it than that because it has the most mind-bogglingly oppressive language filter surely ever put into a game. It cannot be disabled. Somehow censoring words like "lag" and the number "5" (not even kidding) is important for... someone? Something? I honestly I have no idea. Surely it's not to protect our sensitive children, because the soldiers in-game will drop F-bombs as soon as they come under fire, or when they aren't screaming "please, I don't want to die" at the top of their lungs during the revive phase. Not that communication is particularly important in chat anyway, because you can only see four lines of chat (this is the length of a line) at a time, and only from the channel you are currently in. If you're in All chat and someone sends a message to your team in Team chat - yeah, you won't see that message.

The gun play is fun. The progression looks interesting, but you'll hate this game well before you even hit level 1 on the vast majority of vehicles. I wanted to play until I unlocked the MG42 for Support class at Level 20, but good God I just couldn't bear to do it. This game doesn't even have the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Eastern Front.

Go play BF1 or BF4 if you need a Battlefield game. Please don't pre-order BF6.

Mini Metro is an incredibly sleek, aesthetically-pleasing minimalist game that you can enjoy equally whether you're playing exclusively or on the side while watching Netflix/Youtube/etc. It can be very relaxing or very intense and you can personalize your experience to match your style through the different game modes and unique twists on each map.

My only real criticism: the game FEELS like it was designed for mobile, which I was surprised to discover that it was not; Mini Metro was apparently originally conceived for web browsers. This comes through in the controls, which are a little unintuitive at first and are 100% mouse driven. On occasion this makes things a little more difficult than they could otherwise be - for example, if we had the option to delete specific line segments or add nodes/bends to lines - but I can understand and appreciate DPC's intent to forgo them in exchange for accessibility and high visual clarity. It's really only problematic when a line can't connect without creating a tunnel or bridge even when a readily apparent alternative exists but is just out of reach of the narrow range in which the player is allowed to adjust lines. I also would have appreciated a feature that allowed you to temporarily obscure old ending lines since they can add quite a bit of visual clutter when you find yourself needing to delete all of your lines and start over mid-game.

Otherwise I can't help but feel that DPC missed some potential in the audio design of the game. I was really charmed by the music at first, which is made up of a mix of notes that play as passengers are picked up, generated, or reach their destinations. Key changes occur now and then as you connect new stations or complete loops, and over time the music rises from a few sparse notes to a cacophony as your fleet of locomotives simultaneously transport many dozens of passengers. But there's a real shame here in that the notes and keys seem to be basically random, so every metro system (whether it's a terrible mess of spaghetti or a sleek efficient design) will ultimately sound the same. I would have really liked to see some greater investment in the game's music design, such as increasing dissonance with waiting passengers, consistency in drop-off sounds at certain station shapes instead of random ones, different melodies and chords for loops versus lines, and so on. I thought this was what was actually happening at first when I played, but after a few games I realized it wasn't and was a bit disappointed.

These are really just nitpicks though. Mini Metro is an addicting little game for all audiences and I'd recommend it to anyone with $10 to spare.

Spoiler free for Below Zero, but there are some minor spoilers for Subnautica. If you're thinking about buying this game and haven't played/beaten Subnautica, just go do that instead, it's a significantly better experience.

If you're coming from Subnautica and just looking for more Subnautica, then you're probably going to like Below Zero, unless a few of the major differences outlined below stand out to you. If you are looking for an improved version of Subnautica, then this game doesn't really hit that mark. Keeping early access in mind there are some major flaws with the way the game is currently structured that I don't think can be fixed with the full launch.

The good:

1. Several QOL improvements
2. New structures and vehicles. The Seatruck in particular a phenomenal addition to the game that perfectly bridges the long gap between the Seamoth and the Cyclops from the previous game.
3. Excellent music and environmental design. In particular some of the open ocean areas feature far more verticality which the previous game was sorely lacking. Very immersive environments.
4. The brain coral has been replaced with the unimaginatively named Oxygen plant, which makes exploring deeper areas without the help of vehicles far more doable and more interesting, and is an excellent addition to the game.
5. Some formerly common resources (excessively common, i.e., acid mushrooms) have been replaced by less common variants that makes collection and stockpiling more interesting.
6. Batteries and power cells expend more quickly, and charging your batteries or carrying spares is more emphasized. Ion batteries and power cells are available before the game is basically over.

The bad:
1. Lots of bugs (obviously), some game-breakingly so.
2. Performance is considerably worse than in Subnautica. I frequently experienced freezes that could last over a minute, and the lost frames when entering new areas could be particularly bad. This is probably (hopefully) just an Early Access thing.
3. Dry land. Anyone who has played Subnautica can tell you that land always felt a bit strange, and Below Zero went ahead and made time on land a significant portion of the game, while giving you almost no tools to work in it (whether those be unique structures or gameplay features, such as the ability to crouch). The habitat building system doesn't work particularly well on land and your dry land bases will still feel like underwater bases. The one land vehicle you can create and some of the land creatures were clearly intended for flat, open areas, but most of the land you are navigating is rugged and mountainous, so expect a lot of wonkiness. Bugs are, as in the previous game, far more abundant on land.
4. Progressing the story and progressing your blueprint inventory go far more hand-in-hand than in Subnautica. It's unfortunate to have to constantly be wondering if you don't have access to an object because you haven't progressed far enough in the story yet, or because you haven't explored the right area.
5. No changes to storage. In fact, storage has become worse, since you don't immediately have access to Large Lockers, which means you'll have to do way more reorganizing shuffles than you might have had to in Subnautica.
6. Don't expect to be spending much time scanning and reading interesting things on your PDA. Almost all notes on scanned flora and fauna, if they can be scanned at all, are currently placeholders.

The major differences that you may or may not find unappealing:

1. A much more structured storyline (keep in mind the developers plan to change the story before launch). You are more or less directly told by others what you are supposed to do next, whereas the objective in Subnautica was simply to survive and escape, and all of the story stemmed (somewhat) organically from the need to achieve those objectives. The feeling of being truly alone is, from the very start, just not there. You complete tasks and earn rewards from questgivers.
2. The mystery of the aliens is very quickly downplayed.
3. Less emphasis on Leviathans, more emphasis on smaller predators. There are Leviathans and they (save one in particular) are compelling, but most of the time you're going to be worrying about smaller creatures. I personally found the quantity of predators to be very annoying. You spend far more time dancing between crush depth and the tiny fixed areas that predators circle about than is welcome. Predators behave more like Leviathans, roaming select areas, than like creatures in their native habitat.
4. Most of the creatures feel like slightly different Earth versions of creatures rather than new, alien creatures altogether. Almost every larger creature has an abundantly obvious Earth comparison, which can be told even from a great distance, and you can assume a lot about these creatures just by similarities in their appearances.

In all I found the major differences and the bad outweighed the good. As said, if you just want more Subnautica and the bad and major differences don't turn you off, you'll probably enjoy this game.

I'd heard this game was fixed since its disastrous launch so I decided to give it a try.

Conclusion: shouldn't have given it a try.

By far the biggest issue with this game is how absurdly easy it is, combat especially so (all of the following are my experiences from playing on Legendary difficulty). You can beat a force that has four times your numbers with next to no strategizing. Want to win every fight? Here's how. Take the high ground with your general and melee troops. Send your skirmishers and archers to shoot at the enemy. The enemy will probably stand there and take the punishment, letting you crush their morale and take out a sizable chunk of their army. On the off chance they attack your skirmishers, don't fret. Just walk back to your hill. The one unit they send (they only ever send one unit) will follow the skirmishers indefinitely, including into a wall of spears.

If they send cavalry after your skirmishers, fear not: cavalry love charging into pikes. Put a pike or spear near an AI cavalry unit and they'll ram into it like a bull into a red cape.

Besieging a city? Don't bother. Disband some of your troops from your army so that the AI gets confident and let them sally out to attack. Then proceed to do the above. After the entire garrison is dead, just autoresolve the siege and boom, you took a city with less than 200 casualties.

Don't even get me started on the abomination that is naval battle.

It's disgraceful that a real time strategy game requires so little strategy. AI is the most important part of these games, period. For some reason it was put on the backburner for Rome II.

Next up, the tech tree. Awful. The tech times are so ludicrously slow that you'll have conquered over half the continent by the time you build your first Tier III building.

Gold? Don't worry about it. After 10 or so turns you'll be making more than you know what to do with, unless you start out as Rome, where you have more gold than you'll ever need at turn 1.

Diplomacy is better than Civilization V, but that isn't saying much.

To wrap up: at first its fun to crush your enemies, but you'll find yourself thirsting for a challenge that will never come.