To be honest I've expected more from Elemental. Even with 1.1 patch I've played only two games. Not so challenging, not so engaging, I've completed master quest exploiting AI's tactical dumbness - felt like cheating. Other games were buggy too, but... So, list of strategies:

God Tier - Victoria 2 & Europa Universalis 3: Divine Wind 

They were buggy and disbalanced but they've eaten and chewed me. Very very good.

Nice tier - Company of Heroes (I'm slow, I know), Starcraft 2.

I've tried both and didn't complete the campaign. Partly because I thought too high of myself and played highes difficulty, partly due too old configuration and lagginess.

Not so nice tier - Distant Worlds, Elemental, Civilization.

Distant Worlds and Elemental look similar to me. Very ambitious. Big scale. But both fail to deliver the awesomeness. Both are disbalanced, leave me nothing to do, have passive AI and uncomplete diplomacy... Elemental is at least beautiful. And in Elemental I still feel like I'm governing - Distant Worlds doesn't need me at all.

Civilization 5 looked cool but was much easier and not so complex as Civ IV. It has awesome parts (graphics, combat, city state system, culture...) but lefts out too much. Waiting for addons.

Huh, I didn't find Fallout New Vegas very buggy at all, might have just been lucky or I have a high threshold for bug tolerance. 

I'll use a 10-points metric for this one, if I may, where 0 is "total disappointment" and 10 is "I'd love to take it to my bed, cuddle with it and fall asleep with its box in my arms".

These are all games I can still remember having bought in 2010; notably good (8 or greater) items in green, notably bad ratings (2 or less) in red.

At release (initial excitement and first one or two days):

• Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising: 9/10
• Worms Reloaded: 7/10
• Poker Night at the Inventory: 6/10
• Elemental: War of Magic: 8/10
• Fallout: New Vegas: 9/10
• Civilization V: 9/10
• Napoleon: Total War: 8/10
• Borderlands: 7/10
• R.U.S.E.: 6/10
• Magic: Duels of the Planeswalker: 6/10
• World of Goo: 7/10
• Cities XL 2011: 2/10
• Dirt 2: 4/10

End of 2010 (with + and - symbols to indicate trend):

• Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising: 9/10
• Worms Reloaded: 7/10
• Poker Night at the Inventory: 4/10 (--)
• Elemental: War of Magic: 4/10 (----)
• Fallout: New Vegas: 8/10 (-)
• Civilization V: 8/10 (-)
• Napoleon: Total War: 9/10 (+)
• Borderlands: 7/10
• R.U.S.E.: 5/10 (-)
• Magic: Duels of the Planeswalker: 1/10 (-----)
• World of Goo: 4/10 (---)
• Cities XL 2011: 0/10 (--)
• Dirt 2: 4/10

AT RELEASE

I usually don't buy games at release because of bad experiences and high prices.

END OF 2010

Elemental: v1.1 : 6/10

Civ IV Complete: 8/10

Outcast: 9/10

NOW

Elemental: I haven't played one of the beta patches.

Borderlands GOTY: 7/10

Necrovision: 7/10

Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition: 9/10

Then :

Elemental : War of Magic : F (my biggest excitement that year)
Mount and Blade : Warband : C+ (loved the first for its mods, the sequel is TECHNICALLY superior, period)
Blood Bowl Legendary edition : B+ (i used to love Chaos League, i wasn't disappointed)
Section 8 : B (an evolving battlefield, what else ?)
Defence Grid : A-
Civilization 5 : B- (one unit per hex is perfect, make sense and bring interesting situations, although i miss some features)

Now :

Elemental : War of Magic : C-
Mount and Blade : Warband : B (a handful of bugs solved)
Blood Bowl Legendary edition : B+
Section 8 : B
Defence Grid : B+
Civilization 5 : B

EWoM still crash sometimes while saving. Far less crash due to memory leak. I'm still somewhat shocked that i bought a game that incomplete. The good point is that since 1.19, i'm starting to have real fun with the game (factions still look very similar, my games often seems to be a rush toward the biggest armours techs and familial tree isn't what it could be but i'm having some fun, and that counts). If this becomes more stable, i'll feel okay to recommend it to my friends.

Lets see StarCraft 2 good but a little boring.

Vegas worked fine.

Civ 5 works but doesnt work.

EWOM still doesnt have working multiplayer and you guys seem to be avoiding giving an update for it.

Warning, while on game design. this is largely off-topic.

You should give fallout 3 more of a chance. You apparently had the exact opposite experience I did, which is what I find interesting

Dragon Age, is essentially a multiple choice animated movie added on top of a static RPG world, but there is no connection between the two game parts, and NOTHING done in the RPG part will ever effect the multiple choice movie. This was a very deliberate design decision, so players could only make choice inside videos, and could not "accidently" change any outcomes outside the videos. The game starts from several different branches, but after 1/8 of the game, they all join to the same point and follow the same storyline from there. And while the multiple choice movie part branches a bit during the linear RPG plot, all branches eventually leads to the same ending with only a difference in flavor.

Fallout 3 NV, starts with a linear path for the first 1/8 of the game, and then branches into what I have counted to at least five different endgame paths that only share the side quests and the world, but are otherwise completely very distinct.

Does freedom, and consequences of choice (like in fallout 3) give the impression of no repercussions, because it is hard to know what you miss? or does a game carefully designed to never have any repercussions on anything (like Dragon Age), manage to hide it by adding more polish?.. Interesting.

Caveat: EWoM was the only game I have ever pre-purchased and also the only one I have ever had access to at release. I almost always wait a few months for reviews and patches. I also tend to like more retro TBS games such as Dominions, Star Chamber or SEIV.

That being said, I'll choose some games which have some sort of evolution I can judge (The Witcher for example) and attempt to choose some recent ones I have purchased as well:

AT RELEASE

EWoM: F

SHORTLY AFTER RELEASE

EWoM: D

The Witcher: D

Civ IV: C

Dragon Age: A-

Mass Effect 2: B

NOW

EWoM: D (Frankly have not played that much since 2011 started, it appears to have become more coherent / consistent and more stable from what I can see but not yet significantly more enjoyable, to me)

The Witcher Enhanced Edition: B+

Civ IV BTS: B

Dragon Age: A-

Mass Effect 2: B

Fallout 3: A (don't have NV yet, am enjoying FO3 however)

About every 15-30 minutes I run out of memory.

4 gigs...Win7 64 bit.

At Time of Release:

Minecraft: A+++++++

E: War of Magic: A for effort but D-

Mass Effect: A+

Now:

Minecraft: A+++++++

E: War of Magic: A for effort still but a B to B+ (fix that memory leak)

Bad Company 2: A

Just Cause 2: B

Magicka: A for the number of lols I've had with it.

What the hell kind of a school did you go to.

Yeah, I just realized that was what he meant.  Oddly, though, Civ V, Elemental, and SC2 were such great choices that I'm not sure I have another AAA release to add.

Elemental has improved as a game over time, but it's basically trended from C- to C+, with the initial release getting a generous score just because it managed to be a timesink for me despite its flaws.

oh man this is about to be an ideapost

Regardless of its current problems, it would easily jump to a B+ *without any fixes* if unit design was made to be comparable to GalCiv 2. In Elemental, there are no real decisions to make at any equipment tier for the core gear and there aren't really any substantial cosmetic decisions I can make for my troops. What if I want a spikey helmet? What if I want my armor to be black and fearsome instead of resplendent? Why can't my one-handed +murder sword be a scimitar if I so choose? A huge amount of the enjoyment I got out of Galciv was being able to bond with and inject character into my faction by designing my units however suited my fancy, and I feel like you could replicate that same attachment with what would essentially be cosmetic options in the form of alternate models, colors, and styles.

To offer up a similar cosmetic addition, though one that would require less riding the art team into the ground, if I conquer a city of a different race, why not give me the option to build my units in that race's model as well as long as I own that city (similar to how egalitarian nations might build male or female models of one race)? This could give the option to demonstrate the armies of a multicultural kingdom, or as an empire it would allow me to build thrall legions of the races of Men.

I think that people realize that since the devs are asking, that they need to be honest. We could all say "nah, it's totally cool as is" but that doesn't reward the devs in the long run, and it certainly doesn't reward those of us who still hope to see a phoenix come out of these ashes.

I'm honestly way more surprised with the A and B ratings than the D and F ones.