Recent reviews by ando

Crash fest. Glad I got it free.
Not my hardware. Haven't had issues in other games and stress tests.
When it decides to not crash, it disconnects you from epics servers (forced to use epic online services by the way). So you'll have people randomly drop during a mission.

Graphics are nice. Gameplay is a pretty typical horde shooter/hack and slash game. If not for the technical issues it'd be worth it for $30 at least.

Firaxis' formula for Civ games is well established at this point: you ought wait for all the expansions/updates/DLC to release before buying on a sale. So when Civ 6 came out, I shrugged. Civ 5 remained my go to 4X game, until now. I can confidently say that Civ 6 (as it is now, with all content and updates) is broadly a better game. I really did not expect it to be as much an improvement as it is.
Pros:
-Mechanical depth
There is just so much more to interact with in Civ 6 compared to 5. Most importantly, each system is fleshed out enough that you can focus on exploiting a select number of them in a playthrough, without feeling like there is a "meta" (Science was king in Civ 5. It is still relevant, but not to the same degree)

-Districts and Wonders in the overworld
The district system is the highlight of the game. However, the underlying part of this that is most important is just how much more significant the map is. City placement and planning is critical, not only for said districts but for wonders as well.

-Uniqueness of Civilizations
Civ 5 introduced "unique abilities" for Civs in an attempt to make subsequent playthroughs feel fresh. While there were a few stand outs, there were also a number of boring/bad abilities (America, Netherlands, France, etc). Unique abilities in Civ 6 are now split between both the leader and the civilization itself, and Firaxis was overall MUCH more inventive with them. Additionally, a result of the split is some civilizations having multiple leaders to choose from, allowing for a different strategic focus with the same civilization on a new playthrough!

-No more national happiness
Civ 6 returns to a system more similar to Civ 4, where you now have a "per city" happiness condition. Some people might prefer the "grow tall" Civ 5 meta. Civ 6 flips that completely, with there being minimal penalty for making new cities. Personally, I prefer it.

-Graphics
I, like many others, had a negative impression of the graphics. When I first saw the cartoony art style around the games release, I thought it was a step backwards. However, I think I was wrong. In placing so much more of the city on the map, additional detail is added. You get to see the buildings you construct in your districts. Wonders show a sped up movie detailing their construction upon completion, and afterwards remain on the map. You get a much better sense of building up your empire than you did in previous games.

-Mods and Scenarios in online multiplayer
A nice addition. It is possible to unofficially patch Civ 5 to enable multiplayer mods, but not scenarios. And of course, all players need said patch. With Civ 6, you avoid this hassle.

Cons:
-AI
I've seen some comments claim the AI is worse than Civ 5. Personally I think that's hyperbolic, as it is probably impossible to be dumber than the Civ 5 AI. Civ 6 is probably about the same; I have yet to witness any great military strategy from the AI. That said, this is not a deal breaker for me. Civ games are more about managing your civilization than about being a challenging strategy game. I do appreciate the enhanced combat that Civ 5 introduced, and wish the AI could be somewhat more capable with it, but it is just one element of the game.

-No source code
If you were hoping to fix the prior issue with mods (like the Civ 5 community patch), you are out of luck. Firaxis has not released the source code, and it seems they never will for this game. No source code = no DLL mods = no modified AI.

-Difficulty modes
Higher difficulty modes still just provide a bunch of bonuses for the AI. What would be most optimal is removing the starting unit/tech/civic bonuses and replacing them with bonus yields over the course of the game (similar to what the Civ 5 community patch does). There are some mods that attempt to do this, but an official implementation would be preferable. As it stands, the "hard" part is just getting past the AI in the early and mid game. Just like in Civ 5, once you are ahead you will trounce them. So the harder difficulties are more of an annoyance than anything.
It would be even more interesting if the AI could scale based off difficulty, but that is probably too much to ask.

-Audio
Don't get me wrong, there is some nice music in the game. My main complaint is in regards to the music that plays while at peace. The game likes to play the themes of other civs you've encountered in the game. This is rather jarring; I much preferred the more "neutral" music that played for the bulk of the game in Civ 5 aside from your leaders theme and the war theme of the civs you'd go to war with. It annoyed me enough to get me to turn down/off the music at times, which I never did in Civ 5.

-2K Launcher
It can be disabled with a launch command, but it is annoying that I have to do that. Steam is a launcher, we do not need more launchers. Game publishers need to stop this.

-2K Account
No, I don't want to link a 2K account, stop asking me. It is thankfully possible to utilize cloud saves for the PC version. You just need to make sure you manually tick the "cloud" option in the save menu when saving. I assume this utilizes steam cloud saves, even though it is not referenced in the steam library like other games. Additionally you can edit the mod ID for the "scout cat" mod to access it without linking an account. Sadly, this does not work for the Caesar DLC, but Trajan seems to be a better leader anyway (free monuments).


I will probably be playing this off and on for the next ~10 years now until Civ 7 is fully finished.

Like a high quality flash game. You can tell it was from a couple guys. No saving during a run, and sometimes the camera will bug out a bit when rapidly switching between emplacements. However, it is an enjoyable game. The dev had a straightforward vision, and he created it. I can see myself coming back to this now and then. I particularly like the "sandbox" mode, where you can disable certain enemies and set the weather to your choosing.
Also it's great to play from the German perspective in a single player WW2 game, even if there is no larger narrative. Worthwhile on a sale.

Edit: When you quit during a run, there is actually a "resume" option on the main menu to allow you to pickup where you left off. I didn't realize that initially. Not as good as a proper "save" feature, but better than nothing.

Excellent mod! They came a long way from the first game!

They put effort in. However as others stated, very frustrating game with cryptic level design. Multiple times the game has "gotcha" moments that force a save reload. The final boss basically requires a cheese strategy.
It really feels like a bunch of random ideas cobbled together that seemed good on paper, but are terrible in reality. They desperately needed people to play test this while they were developing it. Overall it was not fun and I do not recommend it, even for free.

Excellent game!

Fighting the biobots is a horrible experience. You have to fight multiple at once every time, and unlike in the main game, they take cheap shots at you while you are fighting one of them. Is that realistic? Yes. Is it enjoyable? No. The game was not designed for it, so it's horrible.
Also I can't find anyone else complaining about it, but the movable crates are bugged for me. They really like getting stuck on nothing. I had to reload multiple times to get it to work eventually for the first one. I'm up to the second crate towards what I assume is the end, and of course it is getting stuck as well. I'll see if I can get it to move, but it may block me from completing the DLC.
Edit: 120 FPS cap fixed the crate issue, I recall playing with an FPS cap in the base game so I guess that's why I never encountered it. Annoying that they never fixed it though.

The PvE seems ok, a sort of hero shooter meets left 4 dead. The PvP is a complete cluster where you have AI dinosaurs, a separate objective, and an enemy team to keep track of.
They do not fit together well into a single game mode.
From what I can see there will be some sort of PvE only mode in the main game, but the website for the game describes it as "end game" content.
If the PvEvP mode is the only thing to do on launch until you've progressed to unlock the other one, it seems hardly worth $60. There does seem to be something worthwhile here for half price at most. This also assumes that any paid battlepass/micro-transactions are only cosmetic.

Very good game. I think this is the best looking retro FPS I've seen, far better style than Dusk which is also aping Blood (I haven't played Dusk, basing this off the screenshots on it's store page that were always off-putting to me). Loved the cool weapon selection. They felt very good to use in addition to being rather cool looking, more obscure guns. I liked the minimalist story implementation via the notes scattered around alongside some clever visual references to what happened/is happening; enough to make me invested in the world without being overbearing. Level design is well balanced: not too linear, not too open.

Can run without Rockstars crapware, check the guide section in steam. Even works on steamdeck!
If you already installed/logged into social club, at least for windows you can just uninstall it and go ahead with the downgrade. The guide indicates you may need an additional step for linux. I do not know as I avoided the install by just canceling when asked that time.
Classic game, was great when it came out. Still holds up.