Don't Listen to the Haters, Rising Tide is Incredible.

In the beginning, I only liked Beyond Earth.  There weren't enough leaders, the draconian health system kept your colony under 7 cities at the best of times, and the trade route system was OP as fuq'. The trade route thing was fixed pretty quickly, but  Firaxis needed to take a cold, hard, look at their game and make several changes to it's foundation if it didn't want to just be a re-skin of Civ V.

They've done it. They've really done it. I'd like to finish a few more games before my formal review, but I am having a god. Damn. Blast. 

The soundtrack ALONE is worth $20.