Aven Colony

I found the game to be very enjoyable.
There are a great many reviews stating that the game crashes all the time - which it does on newer chips.
This can easily be overcome by adding the following variable to the game properties in Steam
Right click on Aven Colony in Steam and paste the following into launch options.
cmd /c "set OPENSSL_ia32cap=:~0x20000000 && %command%"

I have heard many people directly compare this game to Surviving Mars, Frostpunk, or Planetbase - I haven't played any of those so I can't state one way or another. What I can say however is that this is a "space sim" city building game, filled with all sorts of random events, and can be quite difficult at times.
It's a deceptive city builder insofar as the hubris it allows you to garner will be stripped away completely once the finite resources run dry. Obviously it allows you to make due without them through other methods but it is significantly worse by every measurable metric. It deceives you into thinking that having a massive storage of resources will save you - well it won't. This game doesn't ♥♥♥♥ around; you could be at the absolute top of your game and all it takes is one massive storm, drought, famine, electrical gride failure, etc etc to destroy mountains of progress; an absolute entropy trap.
I suppose it's actually quite humbling.
It truly is a machine that eventually consumes itself
Then again the ultimate goal is seeing how far you can possibly get until something destroys your way of life and the entire empire comes tumbling and crumbling down. One moment you'll feel like you've conquered the planet, the next you'll be scrambling to keep the people's heads above the water. It does not hold back.
Although if you get to that point you'll probably do what I did and had NEVER done up until that point:
Declare Martial Law
Force overtime
Immigration bans
Emigration bans
Job switching bans
Water rationing
etc etc etc
The people vote, and if you aren't demonstrating a future with prospects they will vote your ass out and it's game over. (Hence full authoritarianism)
It's a brutally difficult game disguised as a casual city builder but beneath the surface it is anything but

Needs more development and more building options/strategy paths. I think it could benefit from more early game resource gathering methods. Trade could also use work, but a really cool mechanic over all. It has okay graphics and fun game play. It is a "Frost Punk" like survival strategy style city builder game, but it is simpler than some of the other examples of the genre, and therefore less exasperating; less rug-pulls, dead end strategy paths, and death spirals. Liked it and think it has great potential.

I read Hubbard's review, who described Aven Colony as “the most polished alpha abandonware you’ll ever play,” and honestly, I agree. At first, the game is very promising. The setting is interesting, the maps look great, and the early progression feels satisfying. Unfortunately, that feeling does not last. This is disappointing, as the game has a lot of potential to be great.
As you reach the mid to late game, it becomes clear just how shallow the mechanics really are. City layouts remain bland due to a lack of meaningful visual variety, and the logistics and resource chains are extremely simple. As Hubbard mentioned, the entire research tree can be completed in less than five minutes. You will see everything the game has to offer fairly quickly, with little incentive to experiment or redesign your colony in interesting ways.
That said, I do not think Aven Colony is a bad game, just a limited one. If you pick it up on sale, there is definitely value here. For players who are brand new to the city building genre, this is a great starting point. Aven Colony is also a good choice if you are just looking for something incredibly casual where you can shut your brain off.
However, if you are a huge fan of city builders with deeper mechanics, I would recommend passing. Once the campaign and challenge maps are complete, there is little reason to continue playing, as the core gameplay loop does not evolve further. The DLC is unfortunately little more than a former preorder bonus map that was later added to sandbox mode, and it feels like a reskin of the final campaign scenario.

I've enjoyed this colony sim quite a bit. I wouldn't say it's a particularly innovative one – I've seen everything it does before in other games – but it's polished and looks great, and I think it's a competent entry worth some play time if you enjoy the genre.
One thing I will compliment especially is the campaign. While the story and writing is pretty mid, the gameplay is very well done. You have basically the same things you can build in every mission, but they keep it fresh by creating unique problems for you to solve. For instance, one mission might make it very challenging to get enough food, while another forces you to have a very high happiness score across your colony. It really does force you to play differently, and to learn about all the different pieces of the tech tree you might have overlooked in a different mission.
If I had to criticize something, it would be the overworld map gameplay. I don't find the interface very enjoyable to use for that part, there's nothing very interesting about it. It kind of feels tacked on just to make use of the overworld map feature and I find myself avoiding it for the most part until a mission needs me to engage with it. If the expedition system was less fiddly to manage, and the events you partake in were more interesting, it might be a different story.

Honestly not a bad little colony manager. It's nothing stellar, but it's pretty fun. Underrated in its time.

Enough gameplay to keep me engaged for a while, with different campaigns being slightly different. I was discouraged by the reviews and didn't expect much, but it was a nice surprise. Would recommend