To put the score into context, the site and same reviewer rated Civilization V:  Gods & Kings just a quarter-point higher at 8.5, and Warlock: Master of the Arcane one and a half points lower at 6.75.  Very respectable score indeed!

A fair review.  I agree with the "needing soul" comment, but think that will come with an expansion pack/mod.  Metaphysics aside, this game will have "soul" when the various facets of play are unified (this is something that's been said before): victory conditions should be mutually exclusive to a greater extent.  Just my two cents.

Navel gazing aside, I am THRILLED that yet another good review has come in!  Stardock stands vindicated!

The Warlock review was bullshit, as Brad himself pointed out.

Good to see Fallen Enchantress did well though. 

This strikes me as a very good review (IMHO).  I think it is incisive and well-written.  It also appeals to me because it delivered a score (8.25) which I think is in the right ball-park.  Personally, I would have leaned toward a slightly higher score, in upper half of the 8-9 point range -- but close enough!

Better still, this is the first of the Critics' reviews to make it onto the Metacritic Site.  So I think there is some good news there for Stardock!

          http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/elemental-fallen-enchantress               

What about Draconians was cruel..?

8.25 is a laudable score. It means the game has quality, and is a a farcry better than WoM was.

I like that some people feel the game is lacking soul. Just enough to make them play mods. But not missing so much that the game sales suffer. The perfect amount of soullessness. Like defense attorneys.

That quote is basically how I feel about FE too.

Also unfortunately true:

"With little room for tactical creativity, the battles are more of a chance to see the units you’ve designed and heroes you’ve customized in action than a whole second side of the game."

It's sad, but Derek focused on merely reorganizing the basic systems and ignored opportunities to add real tactical depth. It's better than WoM, but it could be far better than it is.
Hopefully in the next iteration, eh? Along with fleshed out navy and dynasty stuff.

All in all, I really did agree with the bad as well as the good of this review.

I dislike his comments on the writing. I read a lot of fantasy and play a lot of games and found the writing to be better then average, although some of his other criticisms about balance were accurate.

I'm also more then a little irked he called the game soulless, without giving a real reason why... It seems like a cheap shot that has more to do with personal test then anything unless he explains. That said he did score it about where it deserves.

Think a lot of that could have been fixed if the battlefields were larger though.  Right now, some of the battlefields allow fast units like Umberdroths to head all the way past your frontline and hit your rear units, before any of your forces have a chance to act.  It also would be nice for it to be possible to kite slower-moving units if you use good positioning and have a unit with 4-5 speed - right now, the enclosed settings make this option completely unobtainable, reducing non-magical combat against any tough monsters to inevitable melee slugfests (and killing a tough monster with bows or damage spells before it reaches you is either impossible or extremely mana-intensive on higher difficulties).

Really though, the enclosed battlefields are my main gripe.  Definitely like how this has developed - I disagree with the review about the campaign - liking it so far.

If I had a soul this would offend me.

I hope this favorable review really gets the market pumping. I want this game to do awesome in the market. 

A spot on review if you ask me (right in the 80-85 metacritic range I predicted).

I think many reviewers and gamers are always going to have problems adopting the lore of Elemental. It takes too long to appreciate the depth of the world SD built. That's the upside of going with traditional fantasy lore - people bring their own ideas into what they are. Put "elves" on a faction, give them some pretty skins, focus them on magic and bows and high lords, and suddenly people think back to Lord of the Ring. They probably didn't even need to read the story to know that Elves are immortal and generally fight to protect nature/life against the "destroyer" factions. I think a well-thought out faction design is having the traditional fantasy races but spicing it up with a bit more interesting species (hence you'll find in my mod Stormworld factions like the Shadows or the Living Stone, or why not Frost Giants and Golems).

As for shallow tactical battles. Well.. we've pretty much "all" been saying that since the start of betas. The fact that Stardock decided to go with focus on strategy rather than tactics doesn't change that we view it as a negative.

And of course the "stack of doom" issue (or, the AI's inability to build them) is what really keeps the tactical battles from being "half the coin" of the game. The AI is quite something to behold - better than any other strategy game - but it spreads its most powerful stuff out too much. As long as the single winning strategy is to build a singular "strongest" army, the AI should be doing that. Either the game, or the AI, needs to change.

Overall I thought it was a pretty fair review.  I disagree with some aspects, but some of that I think is personal taste.  Personally I don't think the tactical battles should play a larger role in the game.  Right now I think it is pretty balanced between strategic and tactical.  The comments on the art work is also one of those personal taste subjects.  I have seen many people love and several say they don't like.  I like it, I think it is very unique and creates a nice flavor for the game.

I have not play the scenarios yet, mostly because I am having too much fun playing the sandbox.  The story is nice, although some of the quests to get very wordy.  I also think some of the bigger quests, the one with the ashwake dragon rider comes to mind.  I think the find this next place needs to be more spread out.  I also think that quest needs to be much harder.

I like the changes to the factions, and I think they do change game play quite a bit.

Again, I think this is a pretty fair review. 

I for one love the soul, atmosphere and indepth lore of this game, but I have played this game for a long time already, and no; insectoids as a player race would not improve the game for me!  I think it's a quality sign when a game gets better and better the more you play it, and not the other way arround that is more usual today.

“It’s the closest anyone has come to producing the game I’ve been dreaming about since I was an adolescent with visions of wizards carving fantastical empires out of a hostile world.”

This is sooo true for me as well! Well put! 

I was about to write the same thing, but why bother repeat when I can just quote. I'll add that I hope the game changes, rather than the AI.

Actually the best thing would be to teach the AI to SoD and balance things so that choosing to focus all your power into one army leaves you at a reasonable disadvantage. My current solution to this is quite complicated. I use every mechanic I can think of to make sure the AI has strong armies and that stacking powerful units does not result in taking no damage. Creating a system where both sides routinely lose units and can replace them at a reasonable rate is going to be the best solution.