For my 40$.

[philip.ed]

Blackdog, any conflict of emotions is inevitable. Pre-release, any idea that the sim would be in this (dreadful) state was completely out of the question. The sim had been in development (at various stages) for years. It's like being set a disseration to write in a specific length of time, having that time extended and extended and then handing the damned thing in unfinished. I'd go so far as to suggest that such an event would be completely non-sensical, but the sad truth is that CloD's poor state is comprehensible; there were issues within the development team and, clearly, a lack of funds (and perhaps a feeling that they had all the time they wished).

So with this in mind, of course people who moaned about the length of development would moan about the state of the sim. It's just crazy that a game which had been in development for so long was in such a pathetic state. And, really, that word describes the game perfectly.

TBH Blackdog I don't think anyone realised what they would be getting all along. We had members saying the updates were all extremely old (Freycinet advocated that constructive criticism was unnecessary because the team already knew about any faults, and was thus fixing them) so this suggested that the team were withholding an absolute gem which would astound everyone on release. Even from reports from the Russian show, the argument that the machines didn't have enough RAM soon quashed any argument that the game was flawed (...) so realistically, the sim really did throw the cat amongst the pigeons (albeit an extremely old cat which was probably deaf, blind, and riddled with several diseases).
Whilst the community may have asked for the game, 'warts and all', I think from Oleg's comments about the photorealistic aesthetics, many thought the bugs would just lie within the gameplay. Clearly this wasn't the case either.

CloD can become something special, but it will be a long road. I don't think any more can be said about it. There are elements of it which can both astound you and frustrate you, but one would seriously hope that within two years, the former far outweighs the latter.