Picked this up cause I got a coupon, didn't want to pay 30 dollars for it, as I had seen things that made me think it wasn't worth 30 dollars. It's not a bad game, but I played it all day yesterday after I got it, and beat the story mode in one shot.

I'm just going to blab on about what stuck out to me. The increasing difficulties in the scenario were decent. The learning curve of the game is not steep, you just need to think about what resources you need and plan appropriately. I don't know why they added the ability to view citizens and see what they think, as you can totally go through the entire game and never even care, only the events make you care what decision you make. Some of the laws you choose are neat, but it never really feels like you're making a real tough decision, especially for a despairing city on the edge of the apocalypse. I had no problem holding my own moral high ground, regardless of decisions, though at the end of the game seems like the game thought I was abusing the 'order' path, one of the two law paths available in the game. Why berate me for utilizing the tools to keep people from despairing if you're not going to praise me when I make a decision that quite obviously contrary to those laws? Game tells me I'm abusing the order laws, but when people spoke out, I said let them speak. A poet writes about depression and suicide, I say let the people read it. I never banished or imprisoned a single person. The only thing I did was have guards patrol and people print fliers to keep their hopes up. Why would I punish people for letting their emotions get the better of them?

Ugh, thinking about it, kinda glad I didn't pay full price, because while the scenario was fun enough to want to get to the end, the ending was just so annoying. 'You SURVIVED! But at what price?' You ***** I let people live their lives without telling them HOW to live it, and kept pretty much everyone alive. I even used the final hours to make sure I collected all the survivors still out there, make sure they survived as well.

Feel like there isn't a huge variety in the tech tree / law tree, I mean you're the last city on earth, more or less, so why not give the player the opportunity to REALLY shape it in interesting ways.

At no point did I think I was in a real bind, despite running out of each resource. I was actually surprised that the game didn't throw events at you for rations going bad, bad hunts for raw food, fires in the city, or anything like that. All the events had a human element to them, but in a 'survival' game you would think that man vs nature would also play in, and besides the temperature dropping, it never did.

Ha, wow. So I was starting writing this thinking I'd recommend this game, but reviewing it I can't.

It's not worth 30 dollars for a day of entertainment. It's well made, yeah, but it feels... half there. Like things I would've expected to be I realize are not there, after my run-through. Like if you're the kinda person that likes to turn the speed up all the way (I played the entire scenario at normal speed for about 95% of the time) and it took me about 12 hours to beat I think. Now I'm not saying 12 hours of content isn't worth 30 dollars. It definitely can be. But 12 hours of content isn't worth 30 dollars if the whole experience isn't there. It's like going to a carnival for the rides, and none of your favorites are there and only the lame rides are. You can still have fun, but you wanted to ride the friggin Gravitron.

I'd recommend getting this on sale or something. I don't regret picking it up for... 15 I think. Spent a whole afternoon playing it and it was alright.