I initially wrote a very positive review when the game was leaving beta. It was still very much in development but had enough promising features and vision that I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. However, as it has matured it has unfortunately failed to realize that promise and I can no longer recommend it.
The major issue is in the way the game is fundamentally structured. The player base is split into four nation groups: Germany, England, Austria, and Switzerland that never interact on the pitch. This divides the already small user base into four. The promotion/relegation divisions are further far too broad, going from 1 in D1->4 in D2->16->32->64 etc, each with 16 teams (with teams starting from the 8th division). As you can see, it would take 1344 actively managed human teams just to fill the first three divisions of each national league, which is simply not realistic for a niche genre like this.
Tables also only promote 2 players as you rise from the lower ranks, so the ‘reward’ for my team’s success promoting from L8 to L3 has been spending 5/6 of my seasons in the game with only a single human controlled competitor in my table. The bot teams are all cookie cutter exact replicas, so there is no strategy to devise… just a matter of checking to see whether you and your one human opponent won their coin flip each week. The bots also escalate in power far more aggressively than the human teams are capable of achieving. The only thing worse than beating bots each day is getting beaten senseless by bots each day.
I have been very active in the discord offering feedback and expressing my frustrations with how this is structured, but it is very clear that this is the dev’s vision and will not be changed.
As for the rest of the game: It is still free of any P2W mechanics, which is refreshing in a sea of GM games where this is not the case. The game engine has evolved and improved since the beta, with a lot more feedback on what is happening throughout the match and how players are performing. The mod team does a good job policing cheaters. The dev has responded to issues with training results and modified the system to address complaints.
Yet for all it does well elsewhere this is ultimately meant to be a multiplayer game and it fails in that respect.