“Without some benefit of the doubt, many good games would be dropped and deemed bad. Wanting to like a game is a really important factor.”

That depends on what game and what crowd you are talking about. 4x/Grand Strategies/management crowds are much more patient; 70+ hrs/playthrough is common with a steep learning curve, and this is where a reputation for being complex overrides the need for intuitive tutorials.

Highguard is not one of those games; it was doomed to be Concord 2.0 at the beginning, but then again, I don’t really understand those crowds either, since I hardly play PVP shooters.