Whatever, the fact that it came from Kotaku automatically tosses awaty the idea of an unbiased opinion. There's been a dirty track record of bribes and such on it internationally.

As opposed to the bought and paid for reviews at IGN and Gamespot? The review system for games is pretty corrupt in general.

This is a really poorly worded thread title.  Completely misleading

You'd think the people over at Kotaku would be Smart Enough to know that Stardock didn't Make Sins of a Solar Empire, Ironclad Games Made it, Stardock Published it. I expect normal consumers to get info like this wrong on occasion, but a so called "Professional" review site? Who does their fact checking, a bunch of trained monkeys? When they can't even get basic facts straight it really makes me doubt their skills as reviewers.

People should do their own research and decide if they think they're going to like a game or not. User reviews can be ok for letting someone know if a program is buggy or not, but deciding whether or not something is "Fun" is always left up to the individual gamer. Never let someone else make your decisions for you. Making our own decisions is the only Real Freedom any of us really have in this world and no one can influence my opinion on what I like and think is fun and what I don't. Some people think Monopoly is a fun and challenging game, some don't, and both of those are just opinions, not fact.

deleted because accidentally hit back and ended up in wrong thread...

I'm going to play/buy both! I'll be more likely to buy Elemental expansions at full price though. Unless they just totally go insane with an expansion for Civ5, but I expect mediocre DLC

At least you guys didn't pawn off factions like Babylon to retail stores though.

Not if they changed the names of everything and altered how it looked slightly. The only part of a game that Can't be copyrighted is a game "mechanic". The code that makes that mechanic work can be owned and copyrighted, but not the mechanic its-self. That's why any type of strategy game can be a "RTS" or a "TBS", because you can't copyright an idea. Stardock would only get sued if they actually called it "Masters of Magic 2". Then they'd get sued by whoever holds the copyright on the name, but that's all.

I pre-purchased Civilization 5 and Elemental the same week, I'll play both to death.

I do expect a lot of mixed opinions on this game though, it is pretty far off on a limb so I can see one group of people feeling like it was tailor made for them (I swear they snuck into my brain at night and made a game for me) while others will hate it (omg no rocket launcher!).

You could always mod in rocket launchers

This is a sign that the gaming "media" is growing up. The mainstream media gets important details wrong all the time, particularly on technology or science stories.

So it's nice to see the gaming media like Kotaku reaching that same standard of gross factual inaccuracy.