I think that this is my favorite of the DLCs so far. I know that might be a strong or confusing statement considering the mixed reactions I've seen, but honestly this game has both answered some of my biggest wants and made me appreciate vanilla combat much more.

My biggest issue with the base game was lack of variety in enemies. Raiders are standard, tribal and pirate, but honestly get boring after a while, bugs are unfun because of their simplicity and not because of difficulty, and mechanisms don't really do much to differentiate themselves unless it's a crash event of some sort. The entities are really a different in behavior and makes me actually pay attention to combat rather than just wishing it was done so I could just get back to the management game play. I won't spoil it but the enemies introduced are both novel and intimidating. You can be attacked at anytime with different consequences than the (immediate) death of your colonists. They can be taken hostage, crippled, abducted, mutated, ect. I was way more engaged in the moment to moment game play than I ever was with the base game.

I really recommend going though this DLC blind your first time around, it is so exciting going though and marking off each entry in the database and seeing just how insidious the experiences can get. You get to put your colonists though constant horror movie scenarios, and that is the type of stress rimworld has always made me feel during its high points.

One last note: The update since release really improved the experience for me. I played (but didn't finish) a colony before the update and one after. Pre-update the content was much more oppressive, with the new anomoly content feeling like it overtook the base game. Post update however, I am pleased to say that this is no longer the case and that it melds much, much better into the normal game play experience.

This DLC was really different compared to the other DLCs, and I think that's a good thing. Where as Ideology and Bio-tech added new systems for you to play around with, Anomaly is a master crafted horror side story.

I think that this is my favorite of the DLCs so far. I know that might be a strong or confusing statement considering the mixed reactions I've seen, but honestly this game has both answered some of my biggest wants and made me appreciate vanilla combat much more. My biggest issue with the base game was lack of variety in enemies. Raiders are standard, tribal and pirate, but honestly get boring after a while, bugs are unfun because of their simplicity and not because of difficulty, and mechanisms don't really do much to differentiate themselves unless it's a crash event of some sort. The entities are really a different in behavior and makes me actually pay attention to combat rather than just wishing it was done so I could just get back to the management game play. I won't spoil it but the enemies introduced are both novel and intimidating. You can be attacked at anytime with different consequences than the (immediate) death of your colonists. They can be taken hostage, crippled, abducted, mutated, ect. I was way more engaged in the moment to moment game play than I ever was with the base game. I really recommend going though this DLC blind your first time around, it is so exciting going though and marking off each entry in the database and seeing just how insidious the experiences can get. You get to put your colonists though constant horror movie scenarios, and that is the type of stress rimworld has always made me feel during its high points. One last note: The update since release really improved the experience for me. I played (but didn't finish) a colony before the update and one after. Pre-update the content was much more oppressive, with the new anomoly content feeling like it overtook the base game. Post update however, I am pleased to say that this is no longer the case and that it melds much, much better into the normal game play experience. This DLC was really different compared to the other DLCs, and I think that's a good thing. Where as Ideology and Bio-tech added new systems for you to play around with, Anomaly is a master crafted horror side story.