I posted my thoughts on this game and it was nuked within 2 minutes of it getting posted.  I thought I was being completely fair and honest with my review and even linked "the gamer bill of rights" that stardock posted 2 years ago.  There is nothing about this game that is even remotely fun and to rely on the player base to give this game any meaningful content is just a cardinal sin in my book.  I vowed that I would never buy another game from stardock after I purchased Demigod.  I can honestly say barring some miracle patch I will be uninstall both impulse and stardock for good.

They made it playable, then renamed it Napoleon: Total War and sold it for $39.99

I'm not bitter....

Yeah, I should have left the part in about playability being debatable.  In the most minimal sense of the term, "playable" could mean that you can get eventually get to the victory screen.  As far as my experience goes, however, I'm constantly crashing, there are massive imbalances, and the game is very easy even on the harder difficulties even though I've only been playing the game for about 12 hours.  In my book, of course, that's unplayable.  I believe that a playable game is a game that is challenging even after you fully understand all of the rules.  Elemental?  It was only challenging the first few hours because I wasn't fully certain of what I was doing.  Once I understood the rules?  Unsophisticated, win-every-time strategies become evident very quickly.

Sympathise with this,

He's right, and gamers often have a tendency to protect the games they like against anything negative anyone would say. 

Also, no one in their right minds, would ever use a bad - downright terrible - example of a game release, to justify the condition of another, it's like saying trying to tell a person that you have a bigger stump than the amputee in the corner. If a game is rushed and botched, then saying it's better than x game in the past that was even more rushed and dodgy just isn't good enough. 

A game on release should not be unfinished because it has releases planned, whether by patch, DLC, or expansions. Content Enhancing Releases should be just that, Enhancers, not completers. 

Apologise for these quotes being all over the place, keep finding things in this threat. It's a goldmine for perspective criticism. 

This one interests me Frogboy, because in all honesty, you shouldn't be using GC2 as your benchmark. I mean, you REALLY should NOT be using GC2 at release as any sort of standard. Good game, enjoyed it a lot, a long time after release, and that just isn't how it should be. 

Also your second part is no argument, if your resources are limited then you plan accordingly. If at the end of it all you release something that still feels like a beta, then the fact that console production levels are higher is no excuse, it comes down to what you have, and what you do with it. It's also worth noting here that as a niche gamer myself, I don't expect ridiculously high standards in every single part of a game. I expect good gameplay. I expect to play a game to its completion without getting bored (or at least not staying bored if boredom does rear its inevitable head), without feeling as though the sum of each part doesn't add up simply because each part isn't quite whole. 

I'm not applying any of this specifically to elemental, but a lot does apply. People need to realise, especially in the PC gaming arena, that criticism is what makes games (and developers) better. Telling them that their game is the next greatest thing in the world and you sleep next to it at night doesn't do anything except give them a warm cuddly feeling. Telling them what they did wrong, why it was wrong, and why they never should have done it in the first place, will make a great game. Maybe not this time, but down the line. Unless of course the developers really don't listen to their customers, which is a sad reality in the gaming world these days. 

Best Regards, 

Paradoxical