I bought it, played it for 3 hours. It seems like a shiny dumbed down version of Civ IV to me, with war as the huge focus point, and I haven't felt like playing it since.
I agree with the posts that you've read. The novice maps that protects from rush and the lower game speed will make you much worse when you enter the real deal.
You need to know how to scout and counter a zerg rush for example, and you need to get used to the fast pace of the game. I'd recommend practicing against the AI in custom games and checking out youtube channels like HDstarcraft that shows commentated replays of some of the best starcraft players, this will show you some basic strategies. Also read about strategies and things like build orders on the forums. The challenges that you can do under 'single player' are also an okay way to learn unit counters.
Also I would choose one race you like, to begin with and focus on that one, with things like what to do against each specific faction in different situations. But at the same time you need to know every unit and building in the game too, so don't neglect everything besides one race.
I'd say the most important thing is knowing what you can do in a given situation. When you've played and read enough, you know what to do, and you probably have a standard build order that you alter based on the opponent and what you scout. For example if you scout a dark shrine in a protoss base you need to build a unit that can detect invisibility, otherwise his dark templars will destroy you. Or if you scout a zerg base quickly and he still has only 5 - 7 drones and a spawning pool is coming up, he is probably rushing you with zerglings.
EDIT: Also, even though it is of course a personal opinion, you really don't need to be an expert to simply win a match. That is exactly what the lower ladders are for. I played a fair amount in the beta where I got the hang of it, and after release I have played with a Guest/Friend code trial of the game, and positioned in Platinum and did quite well there. Just go with it and watch your replays, and learn from your mistakes and you will be winning matches soon enough.
I'm looking forward to the hex system where range of units matter, and I think the "not more than 1 unit per tile" adds a lot of strategy to the placement.
Deus Ex. I like the idea, concept, and I should like the game. But I don't. It's probably a mixture of clunky controls and bad graphics. But I have enjoyed games with far worse graphics recently (even ASCII-graphic games), so I guess Deus Ex in particular, just didn't age well for me.
The gunplay sounds awful, especially since that is practically the backbone of this game. Customization sounds cool, but that should almost never be the major focus of the developers, in my opinion. It should be more of a feature. Games like forza would still work without the paint customization but this game sounds like it puts too much into it.
I found Civ IV with all expansions a bit overwhelming. I prefer huge games with lots of other nations, but when I come close to 20 cities in modern time, every turn consists of almost every city asking me what to build, to which I usually respond either units, or more income/lower maintenance. I like the concept of this huge amount of stuff to do, but in reality I almost don't have enough time to even try the espionage system or use the religion spread efficiently in one game. Civ Rev's trial felt too dumbed down and made me miss all of IV's content, but often times the game seems more awesome in my head than when I actually play it.
Maybe I should try smaller games, and raise the difficulty since this would make it harder and less simple.
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