Sandustry

This is the most common criticism, and most people raise it with affection ("My only complaint is that it's a bit short"). Players report reaching the end of the current tech tree in anywhere from about 5 to 20 hours, often in one or two sittings, and then hitting an abrupt "end of Early Access" message just as things were getting interesting. Longer playtimes mostly come from optimizing, restarting, or grinding the last achievement. Some worry about replayability: the map seems nearly identical between seeds, and there's no new-game-plus to carry unlocks forward. Only a small share of those who raise it vote the game down.

Players who make this critique often measure the game against Factorio or Satisfactory. Each step takes one input and gives gold plus one byproduct that feeds the next step (sand, wet sand, residue, seeds, flowers, petals, Florinol, aura). There are no secondary inputs, alternate recipes or products that come back later, and most machines have exactly one use. One reviewer calls it "a tech tree shaped like a post": the factory becomes a long snake, the only puzzles are throughput, and many logistics tools and logic gates never become necessary. A related complaint is that each tier's byproduct can't be processed until the next tier, so you spend the early game stockpiling petals and residue you can't use yet. Even fans who like the simplicity often ask for branching chains and more interlocking reactions.

Many players, including the authors of some of the most upvoted negative reviews, say you can never really let the factory run itself. Dirt and sand must be dug by hand for most of the game (several players call the mining drones unreliable, and they get stuck), heat blocks need topping up with the flamethrower until lava logistics unlock, water keeps getting used up and has to be made from snow or rain, and red sand, void petals and the late-game infinite-sand orb all need manual mining. A stationary drill or mining block is a frequent request. Some players say they fully automated everything and that the upkeep is part of the charm, but for self-described automation fans who vote the game down it is a frequent reason.

Negative reviews name the plant tier more often than most other problems. Wet seeds float and clog conveyors, flowers seem to sprout on walls and belts with no planter or water, vines regrow through the refinery and resist even the laser, and one seedling on a belt can stall everything behind it. Several players say it ruined saves or made them quit, and some positive reviewers single it out as a low point too.

Past the midgame, gold stops mattering: players sit on hundreds of thousands with nothing to spend it on, no way to delete it, and huge vats of it eating map space and CPU. The last achievement (1 million gold) is often called a grind, and some get there by leaving the game idle for hours; some found the map ran out of sand first. The aura and nanobot tier, the Florinol energy target and the 10k aura goal are described as waiting rather than designing. Players ask for a gold sink, infinite research, a way to condense gold, and a faster infinite-sand source.

Given the "every pixel is a resource" pitch, players are irked by indestructible veins, sandstone that blocks large areas, and regenerating dune or sun sand that is a nuisance to clear. A number of reviewers say the world feels small or samey, that most building ends up in the sky, and that they want a larger, more varied or procedurally generated map. One reviewer reported that procedural generation placed a required artifact out of reach and softlocked the save.

A small cluster, mostly people who stopped within two hours, couldn't play: white or black screens, freezes within minutes (one traced it to the tooltip preview videos), "failed to start" errors, or a black screen after a mid-August patch. A few fixed it by turning off G-Sync or V-Sync or using windowed mode. It's rare, but it accounts for a noticeable share of the thumbs-down reviews from people under two hours.

Veterans say many tools are made redundant almost immediately: the upgraded rocket launcher outclasses the shovel, pistol, drill and void gun, the laser burns energy too fast and can't be upgraded, and the grapple hook is forgotten once you can hover. Upgrade currency is scarce, so some upgrades feel like a waste.

Common small asks: too many tools for five hotbars (and no labels), fiddly filter settings, no upgrade planner for belts, no way to cross pipes, sideways launchers, a zoom hotkey, click-to-move or proper controller and Steam Deck support, and getting snagged on single leftover pixels while moving.

Players note that water is consumed rather than recycled, surface water runs out, pipes move it slowly, and the water-making critters aren't fast enough for late-game scale.

A small but steady group asks for co-op so they can dig and build with friends.

A handful of reviewers say parts of the UI and text look AI-generated, and it bothered them.