GreasyDogMeat: Haven't you been burned enough lately to be a bit cynical? I know I have. I'll be excited once it releases and people have finished it and dropped positive reviews.
So - so. I've preordered a few games (I usually REALLY don't like to preorder but some titles I'm super excited because they sound like something right up my alley and I want to support the notion of the DRM free release so I bite the bullet).
I guess the biggest one *might* have been No Man's Sky - but I didn't really hate it like most people did. I actually really enjoyed the (base) game and the only reason I didn't play more of it was because I fried a GPU right around the time I was in it LOL. And I keep telling myself I'm going to fire it up again because the devs put in a ton of time and effort to make the game even more huge and a bit more directed after the fact.
So do I think maybe it wasn't a $60 game? Sure - but I look at it as the tax / donation I payed to maybe convince a dev / publisher that they can release a game DRM free here.
As for Paradox and this one - I don't have *quite* the hate that a lot of people do LOL - I'm still one of those people waiting for CK2 to show up here ;) I don't even need a "full game" - heck do like EU "Complete" and release a base edition with some of the major expansions and I'll be happy. Sure I don't like total nickel and diming microtransactions but I find a lot of them are like clothing skins in JRPGs and I just take a pass. If something looks interesting, I might grab it (as an example, I bought Battlestar Deadlocked a few months back and grabbed a ship pack and a campaign that folded into the main story, but passed on like a few fighter squads and maybe a second standalone campaign?).
So yeah, there's my huge (boring) post. I might go so far as to preorder this one. If I do, I'll let you know in a year whether you should bite the bullet or not ;)