A beautiful, creative addition to the Sid Meier genre, but clearly incomplete. I immersed myself in it completely over the last month and just recently completed the last of the 64 achievements. It will take the upcoming patch and perhaps some DLC's to suck me back in, though I did enjoy this game tremendously. In fact, I'd probably give the game close to an eight, except that I feel that I've largely won it already. It's going to need some tweaking to get it some longevity, though that's hardly surprising. Few games came live up to the replay-ability, depth, and wide-ranging paths to victory that Civ5 did. Still, this isn't a bad first step forward.
Sid Meier fans will see many of the staples of the different iterations of Civilization right off the bat, but the transition wasn't completely smooth. Though an experienced veteran Civilization player (2500+ hours played), the new tech tree was thoroughly baffling to me. Instead of a linear one where you start with Pottery and work up through Iron-working to Gunpowder to Flight to Stealth technology, all of which are composed of concepts you're thoroughly familiar with, now you start off with Habitation in the center of a web and you expand in all directions through unfamiliar technologies ranging from Alien Biology to Transcendental Math to Collaborative Thought to Astrodynamics. You see what I mean? You don't have much of a frame of reference. With multiple playthroughs, though, the web starts to make sense. Like Civ5, you'll start to realize which techs to choose to open up research buildings, military units, ocean travel, and wonders.
Additionally, this game offers three philosophical pursuits called Affinities. There are color-coded techs, clearly marked, that advance you down that particular affinity's path as do completing various mini quests. Advancing in an affinity can unlock some truly awesome and game-altering dynamics such as immunity to normally hostile alien life, cost-free roads between cities, or the ability to summon giant sandworms (i.e. Dune) to attack your opponents. Strangely, the higher level abilities are rather tame by comparison and usually only involve a few extra resources, added espionage options that you probably won't take anyway, or an new victory path. Each affinity has different military units that require a certain level of mastery. Eventually, you can get giant floating death saucers such as one might use to invade a planet. Most welcome are the automatic and cost-free upgrades to your military units as you advance in affinity.
Now for the bad: the AI is weak. The hardest difficulty is no comparison to the toughness of the Civ5 AI. I got ahead early and then rode my advantage all the way to the end. One can play entire games without getting attacked, which is dull. Upgraded units change their names which can get confusing if a soldier becomes a marine and then a guardian and then a sentinel. I often can't remember which is which.
The different paths to victory don't feel different. You basically have the domination/conquest option or several other options that involve jumping through a bunch of hoops that differ somewhat from each other. While you can trade with AI's, I never have other than to negotiate borders or cooperation agreements.
The different civilizations have a single bonus each whether it's increased espionage, extra trade routes in the capital, extra production towards wonders or something, and that's it. No unique units. No unique buildings.
Similarly, there are no natural wonders, though it wouldn't surprise me if those make an appearance down the road. There's an experience cap on military units. WHY!? That simply removes the tantalizing possibility of an elite unit. When upgrading, you get to pick one of two upgrade choices and that's it. You have much less ability to customize your units. Your upgraded cruiser gets +20% vs. sea units or +20% vs. land. No added vision. No added movement. No ability to heal outside your own territory. After three upgrades or so, it's gone as far as it ever will. It's very limiting and anticlimactic.
Don't get me wrong. It's a fun game, but it's no Civilization V. However, it's unpolished. Perhaps it's unfair to compare a new release to a game that developed itself for years. I look for it eventually to be much better, but I've already taken it as far as I want to in its present form. There's reportedly a patch coming out any day now that will fix some of the issues, but they have a lot of work in front of them before Beyond Earth can even be fairly compared to Civ5.