DISCLAIMER: I do not think that Frostborn Wrath is a bad or even mediocre game. However, there are many dubious changes from the previous Gemcraft entry (Chasing Shadows), which create an experience that makes it difficult for me to generally recommend to those who aren't big fans of the games already. As in previous games, you play as a wizard who uses gems socketed in towers and traps, to fight hordes of monsters.

The elephant in the room here is the difficulty, greatly cranked up from the previous Gemcraft. By itself, this is good; Chasing Shadows was mostly a breeze unless you went out of your way to make it challenging. But FW makes it harder to grind while also expecting you to grind earlier on. Your options to beat levels in the early to mid/late-mid game are limited, meaning less room for creativity and experimentation, and greater chance of you replaying previous levels for only small XP gains. If you get through that, then you'll have expanded your arsenal and it'll be easier to progress, but that initial slog might be a big turnoff to newcomers.
Below I'll use bullet points to list these changes from GCCS, the only other Gemcraft game currently on Steam, with (+) for positive, (o) for neutral, and (-) for negative. Hopefully this makes it easier to understand what you may be in for.

Difficulty/Grind Factor

+ Undoubtedly more challenging than Chasing Shadows, the other Gemcraft game available on Steam.
+ Easier difficulty mode (Chilling) available if you struggle with the regular Frostborn difficulty.
o Chilling mode only gives you some boosts; doesn't weaken enemies. If you are unskilled at TDs then this difficulty mode still might prove tough for you.
- The higher difficulty is mainly achieved by nerfing or outright removing options available in CS.
o Endurance mode was reworked.
- Shadow core and talisman fragment drops are MUCH less generous than in CS. This hurts a lot since it means much more time spent accumulating them.
- Wizard Stashes can offer more unlockable battle traits for endurance runs, but many of them range from less-than ideal, to outright unusable for decent runs. Most of these are given earlier in the game (seriously, if you use Vital Link or Swarmling Parasite, you'll find yourself with loads of unkillable enemies very quickly). So you'll likely be using the same few traits all the time; another limitation of your options for growing stronger. Same applies for Skills; many of the ones you can get early on, like Fusion or Demolition, are absolutely terrible for a story playthrough.

QoL

+ Can now enrage multiple waves at once with a single gem. No need to repeatedly drop gems on individual waves. Not sure why some other reviewers cited this as a negative.
o Can create higher grade gems by simply using mouse wheel, instead of repeatedly upgrading a grade 1 gem or having to click a row. The downside is that this makes it easier to accidentally create a higher gem grade than what you wanted, wasting mana.
o Normal mode and Trial mode (where you play under fixed conditions) are playable for each map rather than each being separate playthroughs like Iron Wizard was in CS. Some prefer it the previous way; I don't mind how it was done here.

Gem/Building Variety

o Chain Hit gem isn't here. This means you cannot easily hit multiple enemies with armor tearing gems, or mana leech gems for mana farming. These two factors by themselves make the game a lot harder, and it especially makes swarmlings much more troublesome.
+ Suppressing gem was removed. In CS, ALL enemies can regenerate health, so you'd often have to remove BOTH health regen and armor. In FW, no need to worry about that.
o Poolbound and Bloodbound gems were cut, with their effects now being universal to all gems, based on your mana pool level and how many hits your gems land, respectively. It's a fair tradeoff, Poolbound and Bloodbound are quite powerful in CS, so losing them here the game harder, too.
o Unfortunately, the only new gem type compared to CS is Bleeding. It's not bad, but doesn't replace Chain Hit at all.
o Two new building types, Pylon and Lantern. Pylons store shots from your towers to fire pure damage shots at enemies; very useful for most bosses. Lanterns are AoE towers, but only hit a few enemies at a time and are slow. If they fired faster then they'd make up for lack of Chain Hit; as is, they're generally not worth using.
o A couple of new spells were added alongside the returning ones from CS.

Enemies

o The same regular enemies are back; no new standard types added.
+ Quite a few new bosses in addition to a few returning ones, which all require different tricks to beat.

Talisman (The changes to this mechanic bother me most, so it gets its own section)

- Talisman fragments give you passive buffs. Talismans are mostly dropped randomly, with a few found in stashes. In CS, you had to worry about talisman fragment rarity, which buffs they provided, and whether it was a corner, edge or inner fragment. In FW, talisman is a jigsaw puzzle. Now you have to worry about whether fragments you get are corner/edge/inner, the rarity you want, have the buffs you want, AND are the right shape. If they're not the desired shape, you can change them by spending shadow cores, BUT you also need to have previously sacrificed an identical fragment to add it to your collection. I can't stress enough how much more tedious this already grindy mechanic is now.

Presentation & Performance

o Sound design is eerie and ambient, per series usual. Story isn't super compelling but it's easy to follow, and a nice parallel to the story found in CS. Graphic style is just like the other games; nothing fancy, gets the job done.
- Minor complaint, but for a name like Frostborn Wrath, I expected a world or UI aesthetic with more of an icy or frozen focus. Instead the game feels nearly identical to CS.
+ Game handles later endurance runs much better than CS, which infamously lags when reaching late endurance waves with 100s of monsters on the field.
- Despite the graphic style remaining the same, this game may be trickier for lower-end PCs to run. My laptop with outdated GTX 960M could run CS fine; FW would always lag. Needed my gaming PC just to play this little TD game well.

Conclusion

GCFW is a sidestep of a game for me. It does some things better than its predecessor, while also regressing in many other ways. I did have fun with this game, but also had a load of frustration. Early to mid game was often a chore, and by the time got through that, I was up to the end of the story. Pains me to leave a negative review, but I think it's mainly diehard Gemcraft fans who will get enjoyment out of this one. If you're new to the series, or liked Chasing Shadows but didn't care a lot for the grind, there's a good chance you won't like FW much. On the other hand, if you really like grindy games, or played Chasing Shadows and just couldn't get enough, give this one a shot. If the dev creates another entry, I hope he finds a better way of keeping the game challenging enough, without railroading the gameplay loop.

[b]DISCLAIMER:[/b] I do [i]not[/i] think that [b]Frostborn Wrath[/b] is a bad or even mediocre game. However, there are many dubious changes from the previous Gemcraft entry [b](Chasing Shadows)[/b], which create an experience that makes it difficult for me to generally recommend to those who aren't big fans of the games already. As in previous games, you play as a wizard who uses gems socketed in towers and traps, to fight hordes of monsters. The elephant in the room here is the difficulty, greatly cranked up from the previous Gemcraft. By itself, this is good; Chasing Shadows was mostly a breeze unless you went out of your way to make it challenging. But FW makes it harder to grind while also expecting you to grind earlier on. Your options to beat levels in the early to mid/late-mid game are limited, meaning [b]less room for creativity and experimentation,[/b] and greater chance of you replaying previous levels for only small XP gains. If you get through that, then you'll have expanded your arsenal and it'll be easier to progress, but that initial slog might be a big turnoff to newcomers. Below I'll use bullet points to list these changes from GCCS, the only other Gemcraft game currently on Steam, with (+) for positive, (o) for neutral, and (-) for negative. Hopefully this makes it easier to understand what you may be in for. [b]Difficulty/Grind Factor[/b] + Undoubtedly more challenging than Chasing Shadows, the other Gemcraft game available on Steam. + Easier difficulty mode (Chilling) available if you struggle with the regular Frostborn difficulty. o Chilling mode only gives you some boosts; doesn't weaken enemies. If you are unskilled at TDs then this difficulty mode still might prove tough for you. - The higher difficulty is mainly achieved by nerfing or outright removing options available in CS. o Endurance mode was reworked. - Shadow core and talisman fragment drops are [b]MUCH[/b] less generous than in CS. This hurts a lot since it means much more time spent accumulating them. - Wizard Stashes can offer more unlockable battle traits for endurance runs, but many of them range from less-than ideal, to outright unusable for decent runs. Most of these are given earlier in the game (seriously, if you use Vital Link or Swarmling Parasite, you'll find yourself with loads of unkillable enemies very quickly). So you'll likely be using the same few traits all the time; another limitation of your options for growing stronger. Same applies for Skills; many of the ones you can get early on, like Fusion or Demolition, are absolutely terrible for a story playthrough. [b]QoL[/b] + Can now enrage multiple waves at once with a single gem. No need to repeatedly drop gems on individual waves. Not sure why some other reviewers cited this as a negative. o Can create higher grade gems by simply using mouse wheel, instead of repeatedly upgrading a grade 1 gem or having to click a row. The downside is that this makes it easier to accidentally create a higher gem grade than what you wanted, wasting mana. o Normal mode and Trial mode (where you play under fixed conditions) are playable for each map rather than each being separate playthroughs like Iron Wizard was in CS. Some prefer it the previous way; I don't mind how it was done here. [b]Gem/Building Variety[/b] o Chain Hit gem isn't here. This means you cannot easily hit multiple enemies with armor tearing gems, or mana leech gems for mana farming. These two factors by themselves make the game a lot harder, and it especially makes swarmlings much more troublesome. + Suppressing gem was removed. In CS, ALL enemies can regenerate health, so you'd often have to remove BOTH health regen and armor. In FW, no need to worry about that. o Poolbound and Bloodbound gems were cut, with their effects now being universal to all gems, based on your mana pool level and how many hits your gems land, respectively. It's a fair tradeoff, Poolbound and Bloodbound are quite powerful in CS, so losing them here the game harder, too. o Unfortunately, the only new gem type compared to CS is Bleeding. It's not bad, but doesn't replace Chain Hit at all. o Two new building types, Pylon and Lantern. Pylons store shots from your towers to fire pure damage shots at enemies; very useful for most bosses. Lanterns are AoE towers, but only hit a few enemies at a time and are slow. If they fired faster then they'd make up for lack of Chain Hit; as is, they're generally not worth using. o A couple of new spells were added alongside the returning ones from CS. [b]Enemies[/b] o The same regular enemies are back; no new standard types added. + Quite a few new bosses in addition to a few returning ones, which all require different tricks to beat. [b]Talisman (The changes to this mechanic bother me most, so it gets its own section)[/b] - Talisman fragments give you passive buffs. Talismans are mostly dropped randomly, with a few found in stashes. In CS, you had to worry about talisman fragment rarity, which buffs they provided, and whether it was a corner, edge or inner fragment. In FW, talisman is a jigsaw puzzle. Now you have to worry about whether fragments you get are corner/edge/inner, the rarity you want, have the buffs you want, AND are the right shape. If they're not the desired shape, you can change them by spending shadow cores, BUT you also need to have previously sacrificed an identical fragment to add it to your collection. I can't stress enough how much more tedious this already grindy mechanic is now. [b]Presentation & Performance[/b] o Sound design is eerie and ambient, per series usual. Story isn't super compelling but it's easy to follow, and a nice parallel to the story found in CS. Graphic style is just like the other games; nothing fancy, gets the job done. - Minor complaint, but for a name like Frostborn Wrath, I expected a world or UI aesthetic with more of an icy or frozen focus. Instead the game feels nearly identical to CS. + Game handles later endurance runs much better than CS, which infamously lags when reaching late endurance waves with 100s of monsters on the field. - Despite the graphic style remaining the same, this game may be trickier for lower-end PCs to run. My laptop with outdated GTX 960M could run CS fine; FW would always lag. Needed my gaming PC just to play this little TD game well. [b]Conclusion[/b] GCFW is a sidestep of a game for me. It does some things better than its predecessor, while also regressing in many other ways. I did have fun with this game, but also had a load of frustration. Early to mid game was often a chore, and by the time got through that, I was up to the end of the story. Pains me to leave a negative review, but I think it's mainly diehard Gemcraft fans who will get enjoyment out of this one. If you're new to the series, or liked Chasing Shadows but didn't care a lot for the grind, there's a good chance you won't like FW much. On the other hand, if you really like grindy games, or played Chasing Shadows and just couldn't get enough, give this one a shot. If the dev creates another entry, I hope he finds a better way of keeping the game challenging enough, without railroading the gameplay loop.