How do I give KARMA to YOU! For YOU sir see the picture on fanboi forums as I do. If you say something bad about their beloved hero of a game then you're just a troll and a liar but ohhhhhhh what they say is LAW of the LAND and you better not go against it or you'll be SILENCED like a few of my friends here.

Given this game is 2.5 weeks past release, is it really buggier than Civ IV, AOW:SM 2.5 weeks after their releases?

Given the development time, it should be less buggy, and I think it is, but I think some of you guys are forgetting how messed up those games were before patching and in Civ IV's case two expansions to get it right.

I won't say expectations are unfair, as there are some things I'm disappointed in myself, but I think some of you guys are being a bit unrealistic.

Name one good TBS game that wasn't bug-ridden at launch, that isn't an expansion.   I can't remember any.

Yup, buggy games get great scores all the time. Look at X-com. Flickery wall blueprints, crashes, misplaced camera information in alien ships, SHIVS messing up over and over (not getting repaired, not showing up in battle and so on).

No, you're just not stepping back and honestly judging this in the context of it's predecessors or in the context of what Stardock was saying prior to the release of War of Magic, or you're being overly generous despite that context and the myriad of glaring flaws, bugs, AI quirks ect, giving it a higher score than it would otherwise get if you stepped back and judged it fairly.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a little unfair and hyperbolic, that's because I see that as the only way to get anything done, because we've all tried the polite friendly constructive feedback approach and Stardock has ignored it so I take the strategy of lighting a fire under them and trying to prompt discussion. However there is no way to look at this game and judge it with the context of other games similar to it, and honestly say it deserves a score higher than a 6 out of 10, not unless you're one of those people who thinks a 6 out of 10 is the lowest score a game can get.

No I see it as an informed opinion based upon the context of other titles by which to compare it, by the myriad of bugs and issues this game has, ect.

If someone promises me lemon and gives me urine I'm gonna be ticced off. Every gamer should be, SD pulled a Molyneux.

In a way it's kinda sad, but once you chip off the rudeness off the negative comments, there is actually a lot of good points to be made. The more I played FE in the late beta's, the more I felt that the game wasn't ready for release. Than they released it....and I've been very disappointed.

I play it occasionally still, but more for bug testing that anything else in the hopes that one day a patch release will fix everything still missing in the game and we'll get our MoM 2.0.

The current metacritic point of 7.3 is fair, though imo a little low, for what 1.0 was.

That tells you something. Nowadays - barring extreme and infuriating cases - users can "tolerate" bugs, since it can usually be assumed that they will be fixed. 

FE's "less than stellar" reception is not due to bugs (though they don't help, either), but rather to the fact that FE is just not a fun, engrossing game. Which a lot of us have been saying all along, pointing the finger to the missing "staple" elements of the genre and other questionable design decisions. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the expansion is gonna change all that much either.

I think the Users' score is fair, because 1) I more or less agree with the vote, and 2) the customers are always right, as they say. They are the final target after all: if you can't really convince them, it's ultimately your fault.

This could backfire if it gets the attention of internet trolls.  The Metacritic user score will hit rock bottom in no time.

That's the reviewers score. Also, Game Spy really screwed it up because they gave 3/5 stars....and when metacritic posted the 70 score, they mentioned that 3/5 DOES NOT equal 70, indicating that under a different system based upon percent that the score would be higher. I did the math...3/5 DOES 70. So, Game Spy screwed up and should actually SAY WHAT THEY MEAN. (not that it changes the overall score much...)

The users score is 74. Don't know how much faith to put into this as their are some obvious haters who didn't get their little niche feature in the game....but there are also some blind praisers who would accept Pacman from SD.

In the end, 78 is a decent score. Still think that if 1.01 was 1.0, than SD would have received another 4pts to that score. Another 4pts on top of that if the campaign was released to the beta testers so that the excellant storyline could have been supported by decent features and mechanics instead of just tossing it to failure.

Now that I look back, I predicted 87 in the metacritic prediction thread, but release was rushed and it shows.

In any case, there is still LOTS of potential for FE. I'm still really exciting to see what the next series of patches brings, as well as what the next expansion will include. Hopefully those points can be picked up with that release when it comes.

The reviewer score is really the only thing that matters.

Guys, really? Metacritic? Really? Don't buy into it, don't give that monstrosity power.

Or at least not as long as my reviews aren't on it.

I would say the MAJORITY will see  78 and/or 74 as a C+ and a low C not this B that Frogboy speaks of. I've never checked to see how a site grades the letters or the stars on any site when looking for review scores. So 3 stars is a 60 3.5 stars is a 70 4 stars is an 80 etc etc. A 78 is a plain and simple C+ and a 74 is a C nothing more nothing less and that is what the MAJORITY of lookers will see also. The rest of you fanbois can skew it any way you like to apease your own conscience but I KNOW how the rest of the world will see those scores. Thus FE is just an AVERAGE fantasy game. Doesn't mean it can't get better as I'm sure it will since Galactic Civilization 2 is my favorite 4x space game of all times even putting Master of Orion down to 2nd place. But, Master of Magic has yet to be unseated as the greatest fantasy strategy game evah.

Ummm NO as the reviewers and OTHER USERS have spoken. It's FAR from the quality of GalCiv2 and has a LONG ways to go before it will reach that level of quality and play value. See just a mere "opinion" alone doesn't matter but what the MASSES say does.