Hinterland

With An Impressive feature list and rumoured to have been inspired by Dwarf Fortress, Hinterland has been getting everyone excited. Build a town, give your peasants swords, and then head out to conquer your environs. What's not to like? Lots.

Hinterland claims to have strategic base building. In fact, you'll do the same thing every time: build some farms and crafters, upgrade your guards, and then ignore the town. Although being able to equip each villager is nice, there's no incentive to upgrade your settlement. There's certainly not as much freedom as you'd hope for. I tried to play an outlaw that refused the orders of the king, and my immediate death informed me: that's not how the game works.

The enemy raids on your town are few and far between, and nestled in the safety of your corner of the world it's far too easy to defeat them, even the raids of giant fire-breathing dragons. Even securing resources gets dull, as combat is simply a case of clicking on your enemy and praying his health bar goes down faster than yours - although it's made easier by the fact that enemies never once attempt to recapture lost points. Once you've got the limited selection of resources added to your town, the game becomes a monotonous quest to clear the map of all the enemies for no reason other than genocide.

Hinterlands cheap; but that's no excuse for a game this poor.