Now that the game's out and the beta has been removed from my Steam library after the beta ended, I'm assuming the NDA has ended.

I played during beta and it felt more like one large environmental puzzle than any sort of actual god game, having 4 different gods that each have different powers that manipulate the environment and/or just change one tile to a different type.

Yeah, the world is based on tiles. Each one can be changed to anything at any point in time. Different tiles work better together. Can't remember the term they used for that (I didn't play much). Something along the lines of synergy.

The ultimate goal is to gain all of the achievements and complete all of the "projects" that citizens start in the game. Occasionally, the citizens of different towns will get angry with each other and go to war or something but most of the game is spent unlocking achievements (not Steam achievements mind you though they may be linked to Steam achievements) and working up the resources to finish whatever the citizens of a town throw at you.

After you finish a project, you're rewarded with an ambassador or something that sits on the giant's shoulders and unlocks a power or two that you didn't previously have (not always in order from first to last...they almost seemed random).

Oh, and resources are a bit odd. For the most part, it's a number that changes based on how much each tile within a city generates. Cities are defined based on a certain radius that shows up when you place a city. Anything outside the city doesn't affect it. Makes for a sort of puzzle trying to decide what belongs within city lines and, given you can't just move a city without completely obliterating it, gets annoying when you screw something up and accidentally place, say, an ocean partially inside city borders.

However, the part that really annoyed me about the game is this. It only had 4 modes during beta. 2 realistically but I'm counting 4. There were timed modes for 30, 60, and 120 minutes that allowed you to unlock everything if you could manage and an unlimited time mode with restrictions on research and/or powers (can't remember what exactly it restricted...I told you, I didn't play it much). To unlock the 60 minute, you had to play the 30 minute, and so on.

What annoyed me about that is that essentially comes down to one giant, goalless sandbox when things aren't being thrown at you. The starting world never changes. It's always the exact same size of barren wasteland before you start your thing. There's no complex micromanagement, given that the only thing you have to worry about is finishing the current project before the game ends and that's only in a timed mode (other than war but if I recall correctly, you can't do much about them going to war...I only had it happen once when I played and one town ended up destroying the other. I can't remember exactly what transpired).

There were a lot of people in beta that liked the game and played hours and hours of it but myself and a significant number of others did not end up catching on to it. I voiced my concerns and said that maybe they should add missions or something where the world wasn't quite as malleable and, if I recall correctly, they said at the time that they weren't all that interested in doing so.

I'll probably toss the entry price at them to have the game to play from time to time when I need something relaxing to sit back and play and to put my money in the pot that says "we want more god games" but Reus isn't quite the epic god game people are probably thinking it is.