Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is an incredible game with a very cool engine building mechanic that offers tons of choice. We received it this morning and quickly played it twice. I, already, cannot imagine my game library without it. It would rate 5 stars were it not for the component and packaging quality. Online reviews had prepared me for mediocre component quality and poor artwork. Component quality was as expected yet still mildly disappointing considering the cost of the game. The board is a lighter weight than that of most games I own and I feel like I must be super careful when unfolding it to keep from accidentally tearing it at the scored spots. The player boards are printed on a pretty flimsy card stock but nothing that can't be improved with some laminate. The box, however, was sub-par and the clever but cheap cardboard tray inside was destroyed by shipping. While my first impression was that the game board was small and drab, I quickly realized that the board was perfectly sized. Much of the game is played out on the tableau of cards each player creates in front of themselves and on the player boards that they use to manage resources. The game board is primarily used to track victory points and the game ending parameters by placing various tiles and player markers on the surface of the planet. The drab topography of Mars quickly fills with colorful tiles and and player markers and looks very impressive by the end of the game. The only real problem lies with the packaging. The box is of a lighter quality that most of the games on the market and does not need to be nearly as large as it is. It is much to large too hold the folded game board securely. They try to account for the small board the larger box with a clever cardboard tray that is cut, scored and folded to hold the board floating in the middle above a center area intended for the other components. The tray is printed to look like the surface of Mars and would be quite neat were it not printed on such a cheap grade of cardboard that it was destroyed in shipping. The game board and components are too heavy for the tray and a good shake (like a kid with a Christmas present or a UPS deliveryman) will cause the heavy components to destroy the tray that holds them. Again, I consider the game to be a must own. I do, however, suspect that I will wish that I had waited for the second edition with improved components and packaging. When you shell out $60.00 for what essentially amounts to an intellectual property and some cardboard, you should get quality cardboard!