I would say PCGamer is dead on about this game.  6 months of polish and bug repair would have made it ready for release.  It still would be light in content, but good enough to release.  This company is working to get a reputation like SOE has for games.  Wait 6 months before you buy it.  If you want to make big money in PC games look at what Blizzard does.  1 million sales the first day on SC2 is about releasing a polished and relatively bug free game consistantly.

Ya, man.

I don't know about everyone you listed, but Andy Mahood and Deslock are still doing their thing at PCG.  They are doing more developer interview as well...they just had an interview with one of the Mount & Blade guys.  Not about the game really, but more abstract about sand box gaming and how gaming has changed and how gamers have changed as well.  I'm noticing more of these cool kind of stories lately.

*edit*

The Vede is obviously still gone, though.

Really, I am a fan of Blizzard, but to say SC2 was relatively bug free is a stretch.  They are still having crash issues, balance issues, units disappearing.  Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying that game as well, but they are experiencing basically the same problems.  The good thing about Blizzard, and Stardock, is the support you get.  They continue to work on fixes and balancing for years.

With the complexities existing in making a PC game combatible nowadays, I think you will be hard pressed to find any game released bug free.  The only difference is the support you get after the purchase.  I do not have any worries about my pre-order of the LE.

Dude...what...? Blizzard is not consistent.  Starcraft 2 is Starcraft with a new paint job and look how long that took, and Warcraft 3 went through several patches. Stardock is just a tiny company who's primary business isn't even game development, Blizzard is massive entity inside a much larger corporation, who basically eats money, with a side of money, on a money sandwich, while getting lap dances from women made out of money. 1 millions sales is more about having entire LEAGUES devoted to your game, massive advertising budget, and world wide distribution.

"Blizzard is massive entity inside a much larger corporation, who basically eats money, with a side of money, on a money sandwich, while getting lap dances from women made out of money. 1 millions sales is more about having entire LEAGUES devoted to your game, massive advertising budget, and world wide distribution."

The reason why they eat money sandwich's is because they make good, highly polished, fun games with lasting appeal.

Also, Starcraft 2 is more than just Starcraft with a new paint job. 

I was just talking to a friend about how, unlike every other stardock release save demigod, Elemental is being watched.   When Sins came out, I had no clue.   I even had been watching Stardock at that time, because I played GC2 and was anticipating the rumored 'master of magic' sequel.  It was only after I got a link from a friend to Sins with a message something to the extent of "this game...  looks awesome"  a month after its release did I even recognize that Stardock was actually making games.  

Now elemental had the eyes of the internet watching to see if they could pull off another great game.  I believe elemental can be that game, but it no longer only holds the attention of the niche audience that GC2 held. Everybody can see the promise elemental has, but I fear the poor initial reception might harm it more than with other games.

Absolutely, Blizzard is a great company and they earned all of their loyal gamers, including me. If Stardock continues to make quality games that they support then they also will continue to gain even more loyal customers.  This is my first Stardock purchase and is something that I have been following for quite some time.  For me the game is fun and I don't have the problems people are reporting.  With some more play there will probably be some suggestions I will make, but that can wait.

On a side note, for most people the difference between a "complete" game, or a game still in "beta" is if you are being effected by the bugs or not.  Unfortunately I was effected by some of the issues with SC2.  In the case of Elemental, I am not.  It seems by most of the posts certain Operating Systems combined with even more specific ATI video cards are causing the biggest assortment of issues.  Hopefully they will get that worked out.  Again, I do not envy compatibility developers.  What a nightmare.

Well I tried posting this earlier, but apparently some mod is cencoring the forums.

Brief french review of Elemental

And i took the time to translate it, but it dissapeared as well.....

10sec translation: Says its a greatly unbalanced game that is part civ part HOMM. Says it has a couple of "rare" good ideas and the rest is shit. Only talks about the modding part of the game when he talks about units. Says multiplayer not working although game out since early this week.

Some commenter said the reviewer wrote this at the beach on a long chair and its an apt metaphor.

I don't blame them for deleting it because that "review" is just another shallow rant at Stardock's expense.

And anyway, when something gets moderated, it's bad form to just post it again.

I'll be curious to see the fanboi reaction when other reviews come out.  Will every negative review be labeled a rant at Stardock?  Will the fanbois ever take off their rose colored glasses and see the current "game" is not very good?

Well then I guess Blizzard is glad that I can overlook initial bugs, because I was part of the group that the computer froze almost every 15 minutes of play.  For me the game was practically unplayable.  But, I sent my note to Blizzard and low and behold it got fixed.  There is another company, shall remain nameless, I bought a game, actually sent them 5 screen pics of a bug happening write in front of me.  You could reproduce the event almost at will.  Their response was, "that is not possible".  To this day it has never been fixed.  To this day, I have never bought another one of their games.  How idiotic to tell me it was impossible.  They even said they would even send me some autographed thing if I could show them.  Still waiting for that thing as well.