Considering how much is missing from the game, we have every reason to question whether or not any of the complex systems we were told would be in the game are actually there. Do the planets get any more exotic as you move to the center at all? Are those "significant" player-made disruptions to the game world actually being saved globally? Is there anything besides names being saved globally at all if there are no fleets to destroy, and you can't destroy space stations? Do any of the things they talked about that govern things on a large scale exist? If they said nothing about the game-changing loss of planetary physics, are there less noticeable things that we haven't been told are gone?

As you can see, the game we were told we'd get is a far more feature-rich, complex and dynamic game than the one we actually got. What we got was a static, lifeless and paper thin experience by comparison. I encourage anyone interested in this to spend some time watching the old trailers and demos to more fully grasp just how different the game is from the one they'd been selling us on for all those years.

There's more and it ain't pretty, in my opinion.

Clearly Sean was showing off a very different game four months ago. That footage is incredibly misleading, as it talks about many aspects of the game that no longer exist. Watching the IGN First from April bummed me the hell out, because that game looked amazing, and the game we got seems less like 1.03 and more like 0.5.03. It didn't make me mad, I didn't feel like I'd be straight-up lied to, only maybe unintentionally misled. Then just as I was wrapping this post up, I found the real kicker that pissed me all the way off. Maybe others have realized this, but I didn't until last night:

The most recent promo material from July, the four pillars videos released just a month before launch, are all using new footage from that same old build of the game that very clearly does not represent the one people can buy. That footage is still being used to sell this game even now, and it's no better than what Sega did with Aliens: Colonial Marines.