EU4 is an okay game about conquering ridiculously large swathes of the world, but it's sorely lacking in the historical simulationist elements that I think make other Paradox games so compelling. There's precious little actually going on inside your country that's not just buttons you have to remember to press every once in a while, and events that could be really interesting to try and model, like the Protestant Reformation, tend to be flattened into really dull "define your playstyle for lategame" mechanisms that would be much more fitting in something like Civilization where distinct playstyles exist as a concept.

There's some ideas in there that are compelling, and in particular the (notoriously incomprehensible) trade system seems set up to organically encourage colonial competition along loosely historical lines, but most of the game isn't designed along that philosophy; a lot of things that seem like they should happen organically via game systems, like the 80 Years' War, just don't, and have to be forced out through scripted events. It comes away feeling weird and gamey as a result.

I have a lot of hours in this game--my "completed" status on this game is true, incidentally, I've played multiple full 1444-1821 campaigns (Netherlands and England, off the top of my head)--but it's ultimately just kind of thin and dissatisfying once the illusion falls away. Add to that the atrocious DLC structure, which is maybe Paradox's worst, and I'd point newcomers to basically any other title in the franchise.

I was initially not super big on Darkest Dungeon, but after coming back to it a couple years after I first played, I think it's a very good game. It's got a particular sort of difficulty I really like, where it requires exactly enough thought that even after dozens of hours I still feel like I have to consciously plan ahead, but I also feel like I've achieved a genuine understanding (and perhaps mastery?) of the mechanics.

Aesthetically I think it's also a very pleasing and evocative game, and I rather like the tale that the game's story tells (even if its mechanics are sometimes strangely divorced from it.) An excellent game by all accounts.

An amusing concept for a game with some decent humor in it and a good aesthetic. This is unfortunately marred by its poor design; I could put up with the lack of i-frames after satiating a customer (true to life) and the questionable mechanic of hiding in employee rooms (the customers run way too fast for this tactic to be of much use, and going into them wastes time anyway), but I put the game down after I lost due to a customer request that I literally could not complete because the timer was shorter than the time it took to traverse the optimal route to my destination.

That said, I think the pitch and what already exists of the game has plenty of potential, and I'd be interested in a more fleshed-out realization of the game. It needs polish more than anything else.