Aven Colony

In short, the game is decent and fun, but horribly unstable. I give it a positive review because when I managed to make it work, I actually enjoyed playing it quite much despite its flaws.
Pros:
+ the game is a decent city-builder with some original ideas
+ the resource system is simple but sufficient
+ the campaign maps are quite good
+ the customization is good - advisors are a nice addition, difficulty can be fine-tuned to form a challenge as desired
Neutrals:
* the plot is simple and unobtrusive, has some passable (if dumb) humour, has some serious stuff, and does its part to justify the tasks; it brings very little to the game, though
* some buildings are borderline useless; on one hand, this reduces the number of needed choices, on the other, it reduces number of available strategies
* the alien artefacts are overpowered; once you get one and use it a few times with minimal thinking, you are effectively done; this is a neutral because they usually come pretty late
Cons:
- the game works oddly in different environments; on older Windows, it eats far too many resources (my GPU was loud like a helicopter all the time despite handling many more demanding games well); on newer Windows, it crashes after a few minutes, making enjoying the game difficult
- service coverage is not always very clear on the map - it is possible to accidentally leave a gap unless you build them with significant overlap
- finding a particular building on the map is somewhat tedious, especially if you build tight (which is somewhat necessary)
- the fact that the campaign maps are pretty good is a plus... because there are very few maps outside the campaign, which means very little variety
- the production and trade systems are a bit oddly designed: it is easy to overproduce something and clog your storehouses if you are not paying attention to that one particular building (and doing so is difficult if you have a big colony)

I absolutely love this game, it's super fun and I think it's well executed. It reminds me vaguely of GoodGame Galaxy and Galaxy Life from my childhood. 10/10, would 100% recommend.

Love the cartoony graphics and simplicity of controls with automation (e.g. click to apply to all chemical plants) features, although it could use more such automation features, especially when one has multiple such buildings :)

Aven Colony is not simply about producing goods for the population, but there's also balancing of the workforce, managing food and air quality, optimizing commuting distance, and building up defenses to fight invading aliens.
At first I didn't like how the productivity of farms depends on the location, but later I started to enjoy finding the spot with the highest productivity for each crop, and changing the crop to see which one fits best for that spot.
The campaign consists of 9 missions and is very well designed. Each map has its own unique challenges. For example, there is an icy cold mission where you have to expand quickly to a more fertile area far away from the base, using food rations to keep the workers fed. And keep in mind that whenever food or water is low, the colony quickly snowballs to mass extinction, as people get angry about shortages and stop working (even the farmers themselves!) leading to more shortages.
The biggest downside of this game is lack of optimization. The game stutters above 300 buildings, so forget about building large colonies. (The problem seems to be that the game loads transparency for every building whenever you build something.)
A smaller issue is that the overworld map side missions are a bit boring. But you can easily assign them all back to back to a ship by holding SHIFT and right clicking. On the overworld map, you can also build extra colonies that produce solar energy for example. But there's no extra playable area as you may think at first.
All in all, not a perfect city builder, but definitely more fun than I expected, seeing how cheap it gets on sale.

Nice to play, I enjoyed the campaign and the few scenarios. Overall I had a good time playing the game.
It's possible to get all the successes while playing casually, which is rare enough to be noted.

The game i always go to after a long and stress full day. Very relaxing and brain stimulating at once. Beautiful visuals, relaxing music, simple to understand game mechanics, whats not to love. 10/10

Reading other Steam reviews, I don't know what's going on in Windows land but over here in Linux the game is crash-free, solid as a rock! Maybe you should join us? WINK.

Unlike other city-builders that got bitten by the punish-the-player bug, Aven Colony is light-hearted, relaxing and fun. The simple, attractive graphics and easy build systems combine to weave a hypnotic little spell as you lovingly craft your little sci-fi colony from tender lander-acorn all the way to mighty, orbit-scraping oak.

It's a little repetitive but then what city-builder isn't? And this one's very charming and well worth your time spent with it. Four Optimus Thumbs Up!