Martynas Klimas
Men of War: Assault Squad 2 – Cold War is a game that is sub-mod in quality and looks very much like an official asset flip. It’s the most disappointing mish-mash they could have possibly made. Maybe the game will improve as it gets patched, the September 6 patch did make it no longer possible to call in all the three waves at the start of the game. However, it also made a campaign mission ending crash the game, so I am not holding my breath.
Aquatico is a city-builder that barely tries to innovate anything, and anything new is immediately overshadowed by how bland and mediocre the rest of it is.
Chorus is a game that works in the sense that it doesn't crash your desktop, but it's just an ambulatory shell with mere vestiges of soul left in it.
This adaptation of the iconic tabletop game blazes its own path, but could have done with a bit more care and attention to make it truly great.
Company of Heroes 3 retains the gameplay of the predecessors while disappointing with the bizarre campaign decisions and lack of polish.
Warlander will cost you nothing to try out and see if its high-paced arcade-y combat overcomes the the tedious visuals and audio.
Scorn really brings the art that inspired to 3D life, meshes it with good music, and presents it on a stable platform. But the mundane puzzles and poor combat drag it down.
My heart really wants to give War Mongrels a higher score for the love that went into the visual aspect and the bravery to tackle one of the lesser remembered parts of the Word War 2, but the bugs and some really bad dialogue stayed my hand.
Endzone: A World Apart shows a much more conventional post-apocalyptic world than Frostpunk, and is also a much more conventional game.
Imperiums: Greek Wars offers a few twists on the usual 4X genre - like being more historical than Civilization's History-of-Mankind Thunderdome - but the execution isn't really there to make it worthwhile.
Deck of Ashes lets down its art with grinding gameplay balance and terrible font choices.
Days of War tries to be Day of Defeat or Call of Duty 2. It falls short of both, hobbled as it is by a myriad of tiny issues that combine into a lackluster whole.
BattleTech: Heavy Metal DLC could stand to have more exciting content, so that it isn't overshadowed by the accompanying free update.
Phantom Brigade is great fun, but not for the length of time you're expected to be playing it. Any long-term engagement is hampered by a lack of variety.
Starship Troopers: Terran Command does a lot of interesting things with the material from the movie franchise, but that creativity does not extend to mission objectives.
Per Aspera reaches for lofty heights, but I could never shake the impression that the difficulties I encountered were more because of the game breaking down rather than Mars being a hostile place. But who knows, patches do wonders these days.
Project Wingman will fulfill your fighter jockey power fantasies as long as you can ignore the dearth of plane choices - or the absolutely awful end to the story campaign.
Alder's Blood is a functional game, beautiful, but not exceptionally exciting. On one hand, the game looks great and the writing, while clunky, can inspire a bit of wonder. The gameplay is, however, lacking, as you don't get too attached to your Hunters, and you don't do much hunting.
Phoenix Point has some amazing gameplay ideas and even fun fluff, but it needs to work on quality of life and balance.
Knights of Honor II: Sovereign does quite a few things right, though it could use more polish for many aspects of the game, starting with the voice lines that generals get.