The Gamespot one is going up this week I've heard. I have no idea how that one will go. I haven't heard anything either way on that one but I tend to have faith in Gamespot (though they did cream LightWeight Ninja pretty badly but that was a different reviewer, different genre and very different game).
I have a pretty good feeling about 6 of the other reviews and a feeling that there will be 1 negative review for reasons I cannot really discuss.
What I can say is that this is the best game we're capable of making (without having millions of dollars but then it's just a matter of scale really). If someone doesn't like GalCiv, they probably wouldn't like any game we've created.
This game wasn't rushed, in fact, we were basically done in mid January. We didn't finalize the main feature set until the beta testers on this forum were satisfied with the game mechanics. And if that wasn't enough, we got an extra month to add additional polish, features, and gameplay tweaks when we delayed the game 30 days to make way for Master of Orion.
That said, we're very excited and nervous about reviews. When you're a smaller developer, reviews can be a wild ride where you hope to get a fair reviewer who will play the game long enough to see the good and bad.
A lot of people were very critical of Tom Chick's review of MOO 3 on Quarter to Three. But I'll publicly say that I would kill to have a Tom Chick review GalCiv. Not because he'd necessarily give it a positive review but because I'd know he'd play the game at length before making his final judgement.
That's why I wouldn't be surprised to see GalCiv reviews range all over the place. But I do know some of the reviewers and know they have a history of fairness and integrity. So in those cases we'll be judged on the merits and legitimate flaws we may have in our game. And that's all anyone can ask for.
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