Recent reviews by Major Domo

Right now, the game still feels more like a demo than a fully fledged game.

As for the gameplay, it's much more of a puzzle/TD game than a factory game. But in that sense it does some things right- weapon costs scale exponentially(?), so you're encouraged to rethink your setups whenever you unlock something new. For example- rerouting paths to make use of different towers, figuring out how to funnel a new island through an existing maze, or how to safely dismantle old mazes to use elsewhere

But trying to play it like a factory game is asking for a bad time, since trying to scale up production just leads to things lagging/bugging out. There's also a lack of clarity on a lot of things, both literal (important things sitting hidden behind other things) and figurative (icons that can be hard to distinguish, the whole liquids system). And as far as I can tell, there's nothing post-game to work towards, so once you hit the minimum level of efficiency to beat the final island, the game is solved.

If they spent as much time on the gameplay as the design/art, this would be a very nice game. There's promise, but the core gameplay of spraying water and vacuuming trash is annoying enough to make it a chore instead of fun.

There's no way to toggle spray/vacuum so you have to wear out your fingers holding M1/M2 until you unlock devices that will clean in an area. But if you decide to use them, you have to spend a bunch of time micromanaging them since they get blocked by pretty much anything.

Also the options are pretty lacking, there is at least an FOV slider

Basically a bunch of my experience with playing the game is dealing with the bugs rather than the enemies- I've experienced a lot of CTDs/dreezes/stuck in loading/etc, as well as plenty of gameplay bugs. And it seems like enabling the console to cheat through whatever problem it throws is the easiest solution, since hitting the restart or load save button leave the game stuck in an infinite loading screen. I also have long load times (which might just be my machine), but that seems par for the course for an xcom game.

Strictly in terms of gameplay, it's basically a casual xcom- primarily waiting 15 turns to set up the perfect ambush is replaced by breach mode. And since most missions are a series of 2-3 rooms that you clear out in series, the tactics are kind of dumbed down since you can usually see every enemy in a given encounter at all times, and you don't have to manage the risks of activating random pods around a corner/behind a door, or having a patrol running in on a flank.

I enjoy the game as a way to get my xcom fix without the "boring" stuff like meticulously prepping a squad/waiting for ambushes/bounding overwatches, but I wouldn't recommend it while reloading/restarting/using console commands to deal with bugs is still part of the gameplay

I loved the game when I played it 5ish years ago, but it looks like it's down for the count thanks to uplay-related stuff. I tried replaying it recently and I could only manage to log into uplay once, and that one time was mostly just me waiting around (since apparently the game locks up while it tries to connect every time you pause)

I've played through the game a couple times since it was released, after the major updates, and each time it was basically less fun because of various balance changes (even with added QoL/lategame stuff). I was looking forward to the stuff they would add/change as they worked their way through their roadmap, but it looks like they'd rather start work on Forager 2 and call this one complete?

I'm hoping that it's just poor communication, but if this is the final version of the game, then I would say it's only worth it if you really like grinding broken up by a handful of puzzles

I really like the game, but I couldn’t find the stupid cake.

This was the single best $100 I have ever spent. I've gotten in over 300 hours of gameplay on this bad boy, and it was easily the best time I've had in my life. If they had even charged twice this amount, I urge you all to purchase it.