I've played this game since before the (ridiculously short) Beta, gave it several chances to see where the game is going.
Patch after patch, I gave it several chances, but it won't become the game it promises to be.

--> back in Alpha I paid twice the amount the game costs now, but already there are 3 little DLCs
--> still bugs/crashes and usability problems (take a look at official forum, full of such threads)
--> army movement is crap, parts of your army can get lured away, units refuse to follow move orders and keep attacking
--> air tech can be reached instantly and needs to be countered blindly, putting you in a disadvantage because
--> air is too strong. Massive eco damage can be dealt within a few seconds
--> UI, minimap and audio feedback is bad/unreliable
--> while you mostly have more units than in most RTS a typical game is far away from big-scale RTS

I could go on and on, but I'm hungry! :D

A nice relaxing macro focused RTS where a lot of bussywork was cleverly removed with advanced controll mechanics and I really like that. I also like that you have to play agressively similarly to the RTS series Warhammer 40k: Dawn of war. To get resourses you'll need to take hold of resource points and if you don't have map controll you lose the game which ultimatelly means less turtleing strategies like when a player is hideing in his base.What is also worth mensioning is the music which stands out in my opinion. What is a bit annoying is that the units could really be more interesting though.

As an old fan of RTS games going all the way back to Comand and Conquer, this game does a really good job of getting some key basics right:

- Good A.I that actually responds pretty well to what the player is doing and scales in difficulty in a noticeable way. (An underrated yet soo essential piece of a successful RTS that many recent releases have failed to understand).

- Intuitive and well built UI that really helps with unit management. It could certainly be improved to be sure, but it gets the job done and rarely hinders the fun. I would like to see better hotkey design though. Grey Goo is still the king of that castle.

- No pure turtle in base strategies. Resource mechanics (area control and reinforcement) encourage splitting your army, tactical grouping and selective defensive lines.

- Two ways to win in a generic game, leading to multiple strategies.

- The two factions that feel pretty different to play and have different unit roles in some areas. Visually pretty different as well.

- Nice customization options for skirmishes and custom games. Can even have toggleable creep defenders for neutral capture locations similar to SIns of a Solar Empire.

- A decent campaign (should be noted I'm about half way done) with B+ or better voice acting and a passable story that at the bare minimum gives a reason for the factions to be there and what they are about. I actually enjoy it but I've always valued stories in these games so I am probably biased. Its pretty bare-bones narrative-wise however and more a reason for why you are doing X mission. Also pretty challenging even on normal difficulty. Easy is definitely easy though.


Here are some cons, however, that will hopefully be addressed in the future or at the very least through DLC.

- No replay system as far as I know (this is a big one).

- Could use a third balanced faction for some more variety and some more missions. Some DLC is certainly understandable and I think its a decent game considering the beautiful engine and thoughtful design, but 3 factions is in my mind a genre "standard" that should be maintained considering the pricetag so maybe this could be a free release and DLC could stick to maps and maybe more game-types or special units and unit skins.

- Would like to see more tactical options that have been traditionally used in RTS games in the past. These could include: - Cloaking/detection units - Flying Dreadnaughts/Cruisers - Sea Units/Structures - Nuanced tactical units like teleporters or shield generators

- Cannot set yourself as an Observer in AI games and watch the AI duke it out. I enjoy this sometimes and it can give a new player a few tips and tricks too.


Overall an excellent addition to the RTS genre that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys those games.

Well balanced, very tactical RTS. The scale is pretty epic and it mages to be beautiful at the same time. It took some getting used to being from a TotalWar and AoE background but now I absolutely love it. If you're into your RTS games give this a buy and spend some time getting to know it. Lastly the onnging developer support is aweome, there are regular patches and great comms! 9/10

This is really what the new supreme commander was supposed to be! I LOVE THIS GAME!!!

I'm not saying this game is perfect, because it keeps crashing once I get more than 300 or 400 units on the field plus buildings. It's not lagging, or chopping, the graphics are nice in the video is smooth. It just suddenly crashes the game. I found myself saving after every significant move I make. MAKE SURE YOU TURN OFF THE AUTO SAVE! The autosave saves about every minute, with a total of about five saves before it deletes your old saves. So, if you let it autosave, you'll get to go back about five minutes total. That makes it rough if you made a strategical error half an hour before. But with the autosave turned off, so far, I seem to be able to save my games whenever and the games don't get deleted, so far. My system is currently updated with new drivers and I'm running Windows 7, so I figure it shouldn't be crashing all the time. I will go into the tech support area and see what usually causes the crashes. I have a good Nvidia video card, with new drivers and, the video is smooth and good-looking, so it shouldn't be crashing the video. Who knows!?!?!?

The good: 1. Massive amounts of units. 2. The AI enemy attacks get stronger, and stronger, and never stop coming! If you are not actively upgrading and looking over your defenses you will be slaughtered! 3. You must be very strategic thinking to stay alive, and particularly to win.

The bad: 1. the AI's bombers seem to always attack with pinpoint accuracy, while my bombers fly off in any direction they feel like and bomb what ever they want. (Air attack is only semi-helpful and you can't fly deep missions very easily) 2. It keeps crashing on me when my armies start getting giant. 3. Once my armies get 700 units, my construction units start to glitch out and get stuck where they are. (None of these bad issues are bad enough to make me want to stop playing the game) 4. The autosave saves about every minute, with a total of about five saves before it deletes your old saves. (totally useless)

The ugly: 1. My language when the AI rolls over my defenses!!!! >:-C "#%$^#^%$!@(*&$^%"!!!!!

But, in the end, even with all of the issues, this is still the best real-time strategy game I've ever played!

PROS:
army design;
huge armies;
area control type of RTS;
it relies more on decisions rather then who has higher APM;

CONS:
optimization;
it takes around 5min to find an opponent;
the interface is not the best;
i would get some big weapons, big explosions or something like that;

This is a game about hour-long games, Post-Humans vs Strong AI and the ever-expanding quest for more logistics so as to blot out the landscape with your terrifyingly vast hordes of warmachines.

In almost every possible sense Ashes of the Singularity tries to be a Total Annihilation (the often forgot progenitor of Supreme Commander and similar strategy games) for the modern era.

By far the most impressive thing about this game even from 1.0, apart from its game engine, is its game AI. It is rare to find a game AI as advanced as this in an RTS, especially from launch. Due to the engine allowing it to run on multiple cores the AI is better able to plan ahead, more like in a turn based strategy game. As both the software and hardware powering it continue to improve this might well end up outshining the likes of Sorian’s AI and more.

From what I understand, the development model is for Stardock and Oxide to continue developing both the tech and the game for many moons to come. Already there have been substantial, and free, updates adding new units, maps, UI, engine improvements and an updated campaign. For the moment DLC is being restricted to map and scenario packs, around half of those being handed out for free to pre-existing customers too. This allows for people to help fund continued development of core features and assets that are being made available to all, such as the units and structures.

Some information about the upcoming first expansion has been revealed. It will include walkers, a “global view” and more additions. It will also be possible for players without the DLC to join a host with the DLC and play, just like Sins works.

Pros:

- True next generation game engine. (Expect this game to get better with age as its engine scales to more cores, more powerful GPUs and more memory for larger and larger battles)
- Intelligent AI that does not cheat. By using parallel multi-threading the AI is a lot smarter than in most other RTS’ I’ve played without cheating for itself. Of course a human player will still be better but PVE and co-op is really fun!
- Huge battles with multiple fronts! It really is amazing to see the sheer number of units on the screen.
- A long life ahead of it with multiple expansions in Sins of a Solar Empire style release.

Cons:

- True next generation game engine. (Do not expect this to run well on middling 3 year old hardware. It barely ran on my GTX 660 as it is. However, I have now upgraded to a RX 480 and it runs like a dream. If you’re going to upgrade, ideally buy AMD for the foreseeable future as well since the engine works great with hardware-level asynchronous compute. Although a top of the line GTX will still be plenty good.)
- A very small multiplayer community at the moment. If you’re a PVPer and like ranked play you won’t have many people to play with, especially if you like team games.
- Relatively simple unit and building variety right now when compared to Supreme Commander, though this is going to change with expansions.

I will update this review when the first expansion comes out and try to keep it relevant to the pros and cons.

I love RTS games. I have played all games in each of these series: starcraft, warcraft, command and conquer, supreme commander, planetary annihilation, sins of a solar empire.

This game feels the closest to supreme commander with less building. Strategic zoom is sort of there but not like supreme commander you don't get the strategic icons when zoomed out all the way which you can't fully zoom out. At first it feels like there are very few bulidings so its closer to games like command and conquer, & warcraft.

I got the game after the single player was redone and apparently it sucked at launch. I am happy to say I enjoyed the single player aspect so far. I have 2 more missions left to complete and I bet it will get a good 10-15 hours out of most players. It gets much harder near the end which is nice. Some of them I had to redo multiple times just to get an optimal strategy because its a race against the clock.

Only played a few maps vs ai and it looks like lots of options there so thats good. I do like how this game promotes offensive play with the node resources connected so you can't just turtle to win.

Overall I recommend the game however I had to pickup a GTX 1070 just to play the game more than 20 fps. Now I get 60 so thats nice. My PC is 4 years old so keep that in mind you will probably want a really good graphics card and fairly recent PC components.

I expected better from Stardock, I bought this game on pre-release and feel very disappointed.

Cons-
-Gameplay is bland and unit variety is weak.
-No heavy defences such as shields and artillery like in supreme commander :(
-Very little tactics beyond out producing your opponent to win.
-The dreadnaughts should have been the saving grace for this game but the fact you can mass produce them cheapens the effect. Also they level up, that’s good but the upgrades are poor with only a few options.

Pros-
-On the plus side the graphics are pretty nice.

Overall this game had potential however it was released too early IMO and has received virtually no substantial updates since, would not recommend to anyone including SupCom fans and SIN's players.

If you fancy a new RTS game with good graphics and exciting gameplay I found Homeworld Deserts of Kharak to be massively superior to this game.

If you are looking for the next SupCom... This is not it :(

its a good game, with a big ♥♥♥ war, spaning several planets... but nobody dies