Recent reviews by Josh

Conclusion / TL;DR
Many games out there easily qualify for the $60 purchase, and then achieve a huge amount of value even beyond that. I think this is a case of just barely being worth $60, and only to fans of the Homeworld series or the RTS genre of games. However this opinion could easily being changed given the live-service model this game has adopted.
@BBI Fix bugs, optimize performance, and make unit abilities/selection/docking more intuitive. Once that's done, it would be easy to recommend this game to anyone.


Pros / Improvements
Campaign Cutscenes

• Unlike the previous two games, the campaign cutscenes are fully animated 3d cutscenes with dialogue and tension. However there are only 3.5 characters that appear in the cutscenes, in a total of 3.5 set locations.

Unit Chatter

• When performing run-of-the-mill operations, lulls occur. During those lulls, HW3 fills that void with units talking to each other over comms. There are so many unique conversations that can occur between fleet members that I've been through the campaign almost twice now, and I still don't think I've heard all the possible chatter. This does a huge amount of world building and tone setting, as it paints the Hiigarans as a bored, yet professional military.

Control Scheme Customization & Camera Controls

• There's a new control scheme that's claimed to be more fit for FPS players (not sure why, FPS players don't typically fly). It lets you translate the along the 3 axis using WASD-QE and rotate with RMB. This is different than previous games, where the camera position would be locked on a unit, and you could rotate around with RMB. I'm not a big fan of using either exclusively, which is fine because they opted to allow you to use a hybrid! You can elect to activate the FPS camera by holding down RMB.
  
• The HW games use a signature 'movement disc' for move commands, but in HW3, terrain is much bigger deal. You can now right click on terrain to issue movement commands to the point of terrain clicked. I still like the movement disc for some things, and again HW3 offers the ability to use both.

Time Dilation

• A new feature (I believe only in campaign) that lets you slow the speed of the game down to 75%, 50%, 25%, and 1% speed. This lets you take your time to process and respond to everything that's going on, or take special care during preparation.

War Games

• A new 'roguelike' game mode that you can play with up to 2 other players. Embark on missions with small fleet (carrier flagship) and get through 3 operations to complete the war game. You can choose from a list of fleets that specialize in different tactics, and unlock more as you level up by completing wargames. If you collect an artifact during a mission, you get to choose between a handful of buffs to your fleet even better at what they already do well.

Terrain

• The enigmatic titan-sized structures of the previous Homeworld games have been brought to the foreground. You can now navigate through these immense structures (which adds a healthy dose of immersion), but they're more than just set pieces. Most terrain has tunnels that strike craft can use as an alternate route to set up ambushes, or to go around heavy defenses.

Cons / Regressions
Bugs

• I've noticed more than a few bugs, some of which even having to do with achievements. This series seems to be adopting the live service model, so I hope these are addressed moving forward. I've experienced several crashes thus far. BBI, if you're reading this, do some QA on Resource Collector's capture command, especially during campaign.

Unit Selection / Unit Docking / Responsiveness

• You can not remove a unit from the selection by shift-clicking it. In order to exclude a unit from a selection, you have to get creative (which sucks).

This is especially frustrating when micro-managing strike craft. Imagine you have a carrier with a control group of 15 interceptors. The enemy attacks with 10 interceptors of their own. The most efficient way to deal with them is to continually dock damaged interceptors with the carrier so that you don't lose any. After the damaged interceptors are re-launched from the carrier, they need to be reissued the attack order (unless they are on aggressive stance and the enemies are near enough) which is unintuitive; they should do whatever the control group is doing. Let's say you have 5 interceptors going in docking with the carrier and 10 more enemy interceptors show up. You issue an attack command with your control group, and now those 5 interceptors decide to go back out into combat, resulting in their deaths. I think the only thing that should cancel a dock command is the stop command. This would also solve the stop-and-go movement that craft experience whenever you send repeated dock commands.

• For some reason, if you have a group of frigates, corvettes, and strike craft, you can't issue the dock command unless you un-select the frigates, even though there's no reason you shouldn't be able to order your strike-craft to dock since the key-binding is exclusive.
  
• Selecting smaller craft (probes/strike craft) without using hotkeys is a pain in the ass.
  
• CTRL-LMB is supposed to select all units of the type clicked when there are no units selected, but it doesn't always work, and I'm not sure why.
  
• Rally points can only be placed on craft or terrain, not empty space.
  
• I feel like in most situations when I select units using the band-box method, I did NOT want to select the mothership.

Performance / Optimization

• The game struggles with a high unit count even at the lowest of graphics settings. It starts to slow down dramatically.

Wishlist

• Add a visual indicator for a units weapon range.
  
• Add damage and weapon range statistics to the compendium
  
• Add a key-bind that shows the current movement command paths of all friendly units.
  
• Remove the necessity to scroll on the selection card; all selected units should be visible at all times.
  
• Add a key-bind that docks any damaged units that can dock; that command can only be canceled with the stop command.
  
• Give the strike craft a toggle-able behavior that compels them to dock for repair below a given health threshold, rather than this dock damaged craft key-bind.
  
• Make it possible to see the TOTAL number of RUs remaining on an RU patch.
  
• Minelayers should be included when pressing the "Select All Utility Craft" bind.
  
• Allow a minelayer to a deploy a wall from anywhere since the mines move on their own; this would allow one to more efficiently protect their minelayer(s).
  
• Make it possible to Retire/Scavenge/Scuttle your own ships.
  
• Add a Cease Fire stance that makes it so that a unit does not use weapons under any circumstance.
  
• Add a behavior to Corvettes that makes them orbit their target when attacking.
  
• Add an auto-cast toggle to all unit special abilities, like how the Support Frigate currently works.
  
• Add unit type specific death audio cues.

Very fun & dynamic multiplayer horror game.
Pros:
- Unique multiplayer experience
- Immersive atmosphere
- Addicting gameplay loop
- Interesting mechanics
- Many different levels and creatures
Cons:
- The outside of levels is a bit wonky sometimes
- The procedural generation design can ruin immersion (like a turret just inside the main entrance pointing at the front door, or stairs that lead to nothing)
- Some wonky glitches that can kill (like blind dogs clipping through the ship to eat you)
Would definitely recommend if you have people to play it with.