Wow, my first topic on the forum. Let's try to make a good impression.

First of all, thanks for all the work you've been putting in this game and the effort to get this game released to us Beta Testers early. It's much appreciated.

I must say there are quite a lot of good things in this game, although I seriously think it's been released a couple months too early. It's playable and enjoyable, but doesn't feel like it's whole yet. But well, let's talk about the good stuff:

-The customization process is really enjoyable. Okay, it was there before, but it's really nice. 

-The engine is great, and the graphics are gorgeous. Not in a "crysis" fashion, but they have a lot of personality. Great job on that one.

-I really like the effect designer and the tile designer. I think I'll tinker with that one, as there are a few things I really want to try out.

-The research trees have seen major improvements. As it is, it's great already.

-The tactical battles are much better now. The animations are better (we could still use more work here, but it's really nicer than it used to be), the pace is better, it's more fun all around.

-City building is great, although I haven't faced many dilemmas on that side yet. Maybe later, with the higher techs of the civilization tech tree...

That said, I do think quite a few things are missing or not working as they should. Most of them can be summed up this way: lack of personality.

-Probably the biggest problem in my opinion: the game is called elemental, but aside from a very few spells, the elements are almost the same. They don't feel really different. And there's very little to remind you what the title of the game is about all around, aside from the shards and the spells.

What I would suggest here is to give a personality to each element. Make an ice blast very different from a fire blast. Make us face some tactical choices when it comes to spells. You could go for something simple (all ice tactical spell slow the enemies, all fire tactical spells have a lingering damage-over-time effect, etc.), although that's kind of done to death. There are tons of ideas that you could fish for on the forum or think of by yourself to surprise us here. Just a few on the top of my head: ice blasts could create an ice patch on the ground, making the tile hazardous. Or an ice spell could give frostbite, and make the unit less skilled in battle. Fire blast could blind the target for a small while. You could create a whole set of condition markers (frozen - frostbitten - burning -  in pain - disoriented - etc.) that could be used by these spells, and would be easy to use by modders.

Overall, I think spells need a lot of work: we need more of them, we need them to be more different from each other.

-Weapons need a bit more personality. In the ancient times/middle ages, different weapons had different usefulness (and swords weren't that common). Axes were relatively cheap and effective. Spears were good against mounted charges and great defensively (and better against armor than most sword thanks to the more focused tip). Maces were good at denting metal armor. Etc. 

Here, you could have some weapons lower the armor of the opponent by a bit (you could even have that "bit" depend on the quality of the weapon), some be good against mounted units, some be better against infantry, some be good at disarming... well, it shouldn't replace abilities, but it would be nice to have the different weapons be really different.

-Heroes, leveling up and abilities. It's definitely more enjoyable now than it used to be, but the abilities are too scarce. I know that's under development, though, so I'm not too worried; here are a few suggestions and comments, however.

Heroes need abilities. A rare few have some, but as it stands, it's way too rare. At the same time, the leveling process is too bland. What could be done to improve this is to give a choice of abilities (not the same for every hero, otherwise, we'll have this "lacking personality" problem again) to chose from, for instance every other level. You could even have this list evolve when reaching the higher levels (high levels unlocking powerful abilities), or even have an ability tree (class-based or random-generated for instance).

Units need abilities. Yes, those peasants with the clubs too. You could use this as a way to give more distinctions between the different factions: give them a different set of abilities. Have some abilities dependent on the gear (you can't take marksman if the unit doesn't have the gear, you can't take cavalry charge for a footman), and maybe the normal/experienced/veteran/whatever status of the unit. This way, we could have holy warriors, skirmishers, snipers, etc. that we would be able to evolve through time and battles.

Give recruitable monsters a set of abilities to chose from when they level up aswell. Some of which should be related to the monster type.

And have lots of passive abilities too . Those things are good.

-I wonder if it's a bug, but quite a few of my summoned units have 2-3 mana. Which isn't bad in itself, but they can cast spells from my spell list! However, with their low intelligence, well, it's not really worth it. The bear being able to cast a fireball is a bit weird. I'm not against the concept for a druid-like character... but should every 1st level animal companion be able to cast spells? The imp being able to cast a fireball isn't such a bad idea: it strikes me as the type of creature who should be able to cast minor spells; it just lacks the intelligence to do it properly, though. I think something is not working as intended there. 

Anyway, Elemental is the first game that makes me want to mod, thanks to its extreme flexibility and to the available tools. I still think the game is in a sort of beta state. (This might make me sound like an a**, but some gaming companies would consider this an early beta. Okay, those companies have irritatingly long development cycles, but the thing is, the reviews will NOT wait until the 2-months patch, and the sales depend on those, too).

But I look forward to the 30 and 60 days patch all the same, because I know the game will be really, really good by then. I'm not going to say Stardock will surprise me, because the surprise was GalCiv II: it's no longer a surprise when you're expecting them to make great games .