Tabletop Games Blog · August 12, 2025 · 10 min
Critical Products - product reviews vs critical reviews (Topic Discussion)
I love Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory . It's an amazing economic simulation with huge ambitions. And yet, it rarely comes to the table. The reason is simple. It takes about half an hour to set up. You have to separate card decks, shuffle them, put a number of different components into different locations and do various other things before you can start playing. While Hegemony is a heavy game, it's not its complexity that is the problem. It's the effort of setting it up. That made me think about whether a critical board game review should consider this or if this is more the remit of a product review. Read the full topic discussion article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2025/08/12/critical-products-product-reviews-vs-critical-reviews-topic-discussion/ Useful Links Stonemaier Games : https://stonemaiergames.com/ Fled review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2025/07/26/fled-saturday-review/ Mystic Vale review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2018/12/08/mystic-vale/ Music Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot ( https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/ ) Success by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Music by: Bensound License code: XYJHH24GPPT8BJ8G Artist: : Benjamin Tissot Music by: bensound.com License code: H45DI1U3YDTYLGF5 Artist: : Lunar Years Music I Use: https://www.bensound.com/free-music-for-videos License code: ZX5IAGTXWISS2AEZ Artist: : Aventure Music by: https://www.bensound.com License code: DMMTAKZV5MTBQDPI Artist: : Yunior Arronte Support If you want to support this podcast financially, please check out the links below: Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/TabletopGamesBlog Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopgamesblog Website: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/support/ (Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash)