Recent reviews by Abrasam

This game tickles my autism.

This is, without a doubt, the best game I have ever played.

b

In spite of what many say, I really like it. I feel that it improves on the areas where Civ VI lacked, for example, the 4 city tradition meta of Civ V, which meant that a wide (and in my opinion more interesting) strategy was not really feasible in a competative multiplayer context. In Civ VI the game feels much less like there's a path for everyone to follow, but that you have to react to the games events to best push your civilization forward. Additionally, disctricts provide interesting realism and force you to really consider how your city is set out, to me it feels more realistic and feels more like you're building up a bustling city for your citizens.

Excellent story, really managed to make me tense throughout, wanting to know more.
Also, exceedingly beautiful.

Lots of people here are saying its bad and too similar to Civilization V.
I completely disagree.
This game offers a refreshing take on the Civilization series. I've loved previous Civilization titles, and although this game runs on the Civilization V engine, things are very different.
The tech web makes the game different each time. Rather than researching the next step to victory, you research what your civilization needs, whether that is food, science, culture or production. You choose the path and this makes your play far more individual than to any others.
Affinities are perhaps to some of you, a reboot of your ideology in Civ V, but if you just take the time to look a little closer. They are actually completely different ways of play, while ideologies gave you bonuses for production or perhaps a 10% science boost. Your affinity changes your military, your cities, what you can actually build and what resources its useful to have. It also completely changes your play style because you need to achieve a different victory.
Virtues, admittedly they do look a lot like social policies, but, again, delving deeper you'll see that they provide much better bonuses and are much, much more diverse and more open to individual play. You will get bonuses for specializing, or diversifying. And ultimately, this is the sole purpose for culture, so it had to be powerful, which it is.
Diplomacy is much the same as Civ V, however, they've balanced your relationship with the AI with the new favors feature. You will gain and spend favors so that you can perhaps get repaid when you gave the Pan-Asians some gold when they hit hard times, rather than the AI never repaying as they did in Civ V.
The aliens, unlike the barbarians actually mean something late game, they will either help or hinder you. Perhaps if you choose Harmony as your affinity then you can call worms, and create loyal versions of the native creatures, perhaps if you choose supremacy, they will constantly try and wipe you off the planet, the point is, they are relevant late game, because unlike barbarians, which could never do even a little damage to a city, they are dangerous, and can wipe out an explorer instantly, right at the start of the game.
Quests are completely new and give you bonuses right throughout the game, they are useful and plentiful. They will offer you an opportunity to complete a series of tasks, in return for a reward, often you get the choice, in order to advance your civilization in the way that you need to. This creates another way to customize your civilization and get a different play style to your opponents and allies.
The orbital layer is something that is not to be overlooked, you can launch satellites to improve the land around, shoot lasers down on your foes, improve science, culture, energy, growth, production and more. These can provide a strategic advantage in battle (I find that an orbital laser above an enemy city can prove useful...) and they can provide other advantages such as increasing stats or even defending against spies and creating strategic resources.

All in all. Civilization Beyond Earth is more replayable, more fun and more individual than Civilization V. Yes, there are some features that are pretty much unchanged. But there are also some new features such as the orbital layer, there are some well improved features, such as technology and there are some things that work better in this game than they did in any other before. I think its polished and excellent. It exceeds Civilization V in my view, and that's saying something because Civilization V was frightfully epic.

Thanks for reading,
Hope you read this and ignored all the negative comments from others!