Recent reviews by Volatile Matter

I played civ:v religiously for years, so let me tell everyone coming to this game because they liked civV: it is VERY different. Instead of a tech tree it's now a web, instead of barbarians there's aliens which begin neutral but become hostile if you attack them. I personally enjoy this game quite a lot as I feel it's a tasteful break from the normal civ theme without adding too many confusing mechanics. I also just really like the space theme.
Look, if you like civ and tbs, just buy this game, then play it for two hours. You'll know by then whether you like it.

I love this game. But the bots in it are so incredibly bad as to make the game unplayable. Don't waste your money.

EDIT: THEY FIXED THE BOTS. This game is now lovely again.

Do you enjoy spending hours waiting to connect to a server? Hours downloading mods? Hours taming dinosaurs?
Then this is the game for you. Once you get it working, this game is unsurpassed in terms of dinosaurs survival games. Trust me, I go out of my way to buy all the dinosaur games I can find.

If you play on an Offical (non-modded) server, be ready to spend hours (I'm not kidding, taming a high level bronto can take upwards of 7 hours and you need to be watching it to make sure it doesn't wake up the WHOLE TIME) and hours of your life taming critters only to have them get rekt in a moment by an alpha rex.

If you play on Unofficial (modded) servers, then you can actually have fun in short stretches. That is, if you can download all the mods required before their creators update them. But the mods make the game playable, and it's fantastically fun and so so so addicting once you get into it.

You NEED to have someone show you how to play, however. I had this game for six months before I played it because it's so confusing and there's really no tutorial. But if you can find a friend who's been playing this game for a while, or get on a server with a friendly community, then it doesn't take too long to learn the ropes. And the wiki is pretty decent too.

All in all, I'd recommend this game to anyone who loves dinosaurs. If you don't love dinosaurs, well that's basically the entire appeal of the game. I'm personally a PvE player so I can't speak to any PvP experiences, but they look pretty cool.

CONS: game crashes frequently, maps are WAY too large, dinosaurs move too slowly, servers are always either full or empty, it takes FOR EVER to heal from limps. No wiki and hard to find information about the game.

PROS: Interesting community (there are trolls, but that's every game.), gorgeous graphics, fairly functional game when it's not crashing, good dinosaur selection. Updates are fairly regular (updated this morning as of writing this review).

A lot of the reviews tell you to "just buy ARK" and while ark is a fantastic game, it's not the same as this game. The Isle is a very simple, very striaghtforward survival game. You eat, you talk to people, you make herds, you get betrayed. A lot of time is spent wandering around, but once you find spawn lake you can just make a beeline there everytime. There are always dinos there. (Coords are -9, 90 to help y'all out.)

I've never had any contact with the mod community, so I can't speak to that. But I grew up playing Call of Duty with 12yos on voice chat on xbox live, so it's HIGHLY unlikely someone will be able to say or do anything that actually bothers me. Trying to figure out if you can really trust that carno to be peaceful is part of the fun.

Overall, I beleive this game has great potential. It's already fun, with amazing graphics (something you usually don't get in EA games) and an active community. You will spend a long time limping around a far-too-large map though, so be warned. I highly suggest this game if you like dinosaurs, cause for me that's at least half the entertainment value.

If you are curious about the community as I've met them, check out my screenshots. I post most interesting exchanges that I encounter.