I have continued to play it, and even 100%'d the achievements, and the statements below still reflect my current thoughts on the game up to the latest patch,"Earl Grey".

It was fun for the first few hours, until I figured out that... that's it. There's nothing more to it. It's just more of the same, tedious stuff. The economy clearly had lots of good ideas, but it seems like many of those ideas weren't fully visualized. That, or they're saving them for DLC. The economic game has turned into a "command economy simulator" where everything must be done by the government - you.

There are no private ventures outside of a rare event. Privately owned or publicly traded factories, mines, etc collect a reserve of money, and will pay it's employees a competitive wage for the region automatically, and you collect tax from this revenue. Factories employ "capitalists" who do not do much capitalism - most of their wage goes into a "investment fund" which is spent on you building new buildings. If your investment fund isn't enough to build something, the remaining cost comes straight from your national budget. So they're more like a "federal piggy bank" to be spent on new buildings, as opposed to being capitalists who actively fund things they desire.

Resources and goods max out their cost at 75% more expensive, capping scarcity. It's rather clear that this was done because the economic model in the game breaks down if this isn't capped, as many goods will be at max price during the early game, breaking the economy if this was not there.

I do like the concept of markets as opposed to spheres of influence, and the ability to control your international trade, but the AI's tendency to randomly shift attitudes like a change in the wind can make diplomacy impossible, which is necessary to maintain a market. For three weeks, the UK might be antagonistic, then it'll turn conciliatory, then antagonistic again, then genial, etc. It seems to just be random, and the chaotic nature makes diplomacy impossible.

The warfare at first seemed curious - It's something different! But the AI general is neurotic at best, changing fronts at random when the fronts split at bizzare times, and sending 3 units in to fight 100 units, when I had 300 units on that front.... Several. Times. With different generals... Yeah. It could've been a interesting change of pace, but it ends up removing a lot of depth for no benefit - a net negative.