Recent reviews by Tricky Dick Nixon

Launched on time.
Works immediately.
No bugs in sight.

Wube Quality

World tour is a bit grindy but it gets the job done of helping you learn some basic mechanics piecemeal. Good way for a newcomer to figthing games to get a bit better. Online is very lively. Menus are a bit annoying but the game runs and plays great. Soundtrack aside from the pickscreen is bretty good

HOLY SOVL

Runs well, plays decent.
AI is never gonna be great but it's better than it was. Looks fantastic.
A very ambitious title that mostly does what it says on the tin.

Never was a fan of banished, too mundane for a theme along with extended periods of waiting and things feeling out of player control. I thought Farthest Frontier might have more interesting mechanics. Unfortunately cyclical wait cycles, a minor amount of busywork in assigning foragers and work camps and very one dimensional combat doesn't improve the formula. I'll stick to other more engaging city builders.
Performance was quite poor also.
If you did enjoy banished you may enjoy this.

Slay the Spire, Monster Train....and now Balatro.
The trinity of top tier deckbuilders.

citybuilder with replayability. roguelite elements for production buildings and resources. didnt click at first, took a couple hours to get it but a very well made game.

A neat solo auto battler experience. Core gameplay pretty good, everything else still feels very early access. positive review in the hope certain elements improve.
+interesting enough units
+solo auto battler (not enough of them around)
-UI very flat and dull
-repetetive audio
-character portraits and art subjectively unpleasant

edit: a few more negatives about the game.
The unlock and difficulty system, overwhelming choice, i want to play a game not design a game. Give me flat simple options and hide away the more complex stuff for those that want to look for it.
The perspective, you've got some cool models in game, but the angle makes it so they're barely seen. Drop the angle a few degrees.

A pretty damn good tower defence with some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ui systems that force more playtime/actual cash money spend.
Game could tell you the types of bloons coming next round so you don't get surprised and have to spend hard earned monkey cash to redo.. but it doesn't. It could have a more clear listing of what can and can't pop lead/ceramic/purple bloons.. but it doesnt. of course you can look at a wiki but it shouldn't be necessary.
You can play the game entirely for free spending tons of hours unlocking heroes and getting powers to take on harder content, or you can pay real money to do so. There's pay to win elements that are pretty insidious.
+tons of tower and level variety
+functional co op
-grindy pay 2 win event content
-deliberately obfuscated game elements that lead to time and/or money investment

This review reflects the base single player experience, co op is one of the things that sets this deckbuilder apart but I cant make any claims on it.

As a solo play experience the options are a bit overwhelming, game is a bit slow and the mechanics are a bit dull. It's not terrible but it's not as engaging as your slay the spires/monster trains. I think the art is quite average/ugly.
+looks like there's lots of options in decks/characters/items
-those options don't appear to involve a lot of exciting changes.
~I can see the game appealing more to those that like grindier content, because it feels theres quite a bit of content buried behind grind.