Empire of Sin

So sad that this piece of gem is abandoned, it had great potential. Still has a lot of content to offer but it gets repetitive after a good twenty hours. The game has a great framework to build something upon, but they decided to let it go, big L for both Romero and Paradox.
Still, give it a shot when it is discounted, if you are into gangster tycoons, this is a fun experience just not a depth one.

I don't understand all the hate. This game is excellent. Have fun and pick the game up on a sale if you're on the fence due to reading all the negative reviews.
There were a couple wonky things that I had to work around that I have read people screaming about, but honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal. For example, there is a story mission a maybe a couple of other missions when you have to raid a particular racket, but if the racket is in a neighborhood owned by a friendly gangster, then you have to declare war on them and deal with all that in order to raid a particular racket and progress the story. So that's what I did and then picked up a sweet new precinct and quickly went back to peace. There is a journalist that shows up later in the game when you are considering consolidating neighborhoods and discovering meeting the big bosses and deeper story of corruption. He will just charge you a grand to drastically improve your reputation with a particular gangster through favorable press. It's all good. The bugs and work arrounds needed are managable. I paid #$30 on a sale for the base game, some extra goodies that make the game better, and the one real DLC that was released in 3 years. I guess I would be upset too if I new about this game 3 years ago and bought a season pass only to see one DLC release in that time when I paid for at least 3. That was a problem for me and I would have also paid for the future DLC if I hadn't read about this being a "dead game" and all that. Still, I'm loving it. The character are interesting, the strategy is there, and it's fun seeing my little couple of rackets grow into a neighborhood. I'm looking forward to playing at least one more gang.
Here's a couple of newbie hints for this game. It is possible to play this on the hardest difficulty, but you start at a disadvantage with only you main character. They are very over powered though and can rip through a couple of thugs on their own if extremely violent and creative ways. Look around for stashes and take down those one skull rackets to quickly boost your character. Then get the doctor when you have $3000 to blow. She can quickly heal you up so you can race to consolidate territory and become a powerhouse. The feds and major gangs will still present a bit of a challenge if you care about not getting to many members of your gang killed.
Fun times for me.

I'm a huge Wasteland 3 fan - and bought this game following some reviews that mentioned that the game was similar. Although this has some similarities, the truth is that this game is way more than just shooting. You have to build your empire, manage your casinos, bars, establish relationships with other factions... all with great graphics and original and quirky players. Who knew... I'm addicted to this game now!

Empire of Sin is a turn-based tactical/empire building “gabagool” simulator developed by Romero Games, a studio created by DOOM creator John Romero. Originally coming from the mind of John Romero’s wife Brenda Romero, whose hobbies included creating her own historical board games. This desire to create the game had lasted for around twenty years, and after the studio was formed the two then decided to approach Paradox Interactive, whose history of publishing strategy titles led to a partnership formed for the development of this game. It’s debut started I believe in 2019 E3 during the Nintendo Showcase (according to sources, as though I probably watched this showcase I don’t remember this moment) and was later released December of 2020. My personal history with this game is limited, I honestly don’t remember if I watched the Nintendo Showcase but I do remember hearing “Mafia strategy game” and wishlisting it immediately. I was cautiously excited for the game, hoping that it would be an updated version of Gangsters: Organized Crime. It was not, and debuted with Mixed reviews (almost negative on Steam). However, I picked it up after waiting for it to go on sale I believe at some point and gave it a playthrough (with cheats activated of course, thanks WeMod) to just relax, having replayed it twice or so over the past two years. My opinion on the game is that the mixed reviews are correct, but here’s how I specifically feel.
As the most important part of any tactical empire builder game, it’s important to note that the strategy aspect of the game has to be both fun and technically competent. I’ll start with the technically competent one: ehhhh kinda. Sometimes it runs perfectly fine and I can’t complain! Other times, like when I was playing Al Capone’s game, I would be told to, for example, go find Frankie Yale inside of some bar. However, I can’t do that because “the guards” won’t let me do that. I try to talk to the guards, sometimes the guards will attack and sometimes I’ll be able to talk to the guards, who will say “sure come in” and then I still won’t be able to go in. I kill them, still won’t be able to come in. The only way I’ve been able to move past this was if I were to view the inside of the building and then right click to move my guys inside but that’s kind of a hit or miss depending on the objective. Another time I would do a protection treaty with another group, and if another group was bought out but had bad relations and had declared war then the group you’re protecting would ask for your help. Click on the notification and not only does it say that this group is still alive and needs your help, but you won’t be able to close this pop up which requires a full game reset. Stuff like this didn’t occur too much but occurred enough to where after a while of playing it that I need to take a break after a bit.
As for if the gameplay is fun, I’ll go through a general description of what the game is like. First when you start up, you start as your boss and go through the tutorials of hiring specific goons (the limit is 16), from there you go to certain buildings which have random thugs and wipe them out in X-COM styled combat in order to take over the building and turn it into a racket. From there you choose between your four (or five depending on if you have DLC) rackets which vary in price depending on district conditions, and from there you grow your money in order to upgrade your rackets. Once you upgrade your main district hideout enough, you can choose between multiple different buildings for bonuses to those districts (ex. Boxing Gloves for an extra guard in that district only, a Mob Lawyer to lower police presence, etc). You can gain more of these by obtaining certain quest awards or using certain bosses (like Malting will boost your booze but can only be unlocked from a side quest outcome, or Al Capone’s Suit Shop which will boost the chances of police bribes being successful that’s unique to him only). You’ll get quests which offer semi open ended pathways which lead to different rewards sometimes (mostly money) while also dealing with a giant contention of other rival gangsters. Your specific gangsters (as well as your boss) form their own relationships with each other (off-screen) and can get perks and traits. For example, one thing I didn’t notice is that when I went AFK one time, I left all my people inside of a pub, where a whole bunch of them became alcoholics and gained negative traits. You can also gain traits and perks due to combat actions, and using perk points can upgrade their skill tree when you level them up.
In between dealing with rival gangsters, you’ll also have to deal with the game’s most important currency other than money: booze. Being the Prohibition Era and all, it’s important to establish a consistent stream of booze and supply. Different types of booze lead to different payouts and outcomes, but also lead to rival bosses trying to ride your s h i t. What I’ll say about the bosses aspect is that the way the game limits you, while it may be realistic can also be really annoying. At one point I found out the location of a rival boss's hideout, and I wanted to send a bunch of goons to go in and kill them, but I couldn’t because none of my territory surrounds them and “supply lines are cut off”. Like that hasn’t stopped people from sending in hitmen to kill bosses, and truth is I’d rather have the option to fail then get restricted like that because it’s really annoying. The only other things I can think of for the gameplay is that you’ll get certain weapons either as loot or through the black market/police contacts. It’s important to get the best hardware that you can possibly get as not only does it help with combat but also rival named goons could have really heavy firepower and could wipe you out quickly. Being a strategy game, there’s so much stuff involved with this game, between police attention/bureau raids as well as balancing diplomacy, random world events, there’s a lot of stuff in there that I know I’m probably missing.
The gameplay itself for the most part is fine, and I’ve gotten myself lost in the game’s mechanics multiple times. I personally had fun with the game, though I also messed about using WeMod Dev cheats because I wanted to have a game to chill and vibe too. However, even with the cheat codes, I can still sit there and respect certain aspects and vibes even if I’m not experiencing them due to my mod use. This game feels like a strange mix of complex and painfully simple, which depending on the type of player can be really frustrating or okay. Overall, it’s a decent time as well as a time sink, just have patience with how buggy it can be on the gameplay front at times. Also there's a very small Steam Workshop community that I Hope eventually gets expanded one day because that could add for some variation!
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Its good but its a Dead Game

Fun and buggy paradox game (allegedly abandoned).
It's buggy, the main quest will break if buildings are flipped, some characters will literally cause the turn base to stop progressing and you have to restart the game. However, at a heavily discounted price, this is worth the gameplay. It's a fantasy Paradox game, best described as Risk combined with XCOM combat with micro-management of building upgrades like crusader kings 2.
Resources you handle are budget-cutting hiring services for your crew. Relationship context of the said crew, aka Bob thinks Jim is about to die, Bob loses morale, and shoots less good by 20%. Additionally, resources are alcohol (type and quantity), consoomers (fame/honour), and money.
Final Rating: 1920/1930

A lot of fun. I assume it launched in a more unfinished/buggy state, but it all runs pretty smoothly now, so it seems like the main drawback at this point is that the game has been "abandoned".
NOTE: No second expansion is coming, so if you want to get everything, you just need the main game, the Make it Count DLC (the first expansion), and the Deluxe Pack (which upgrades the main game to the Deluxe edition)... this will leave you without Al Capone's Fur Coat, which I think you can only get by wasting the money for the expansion pass for the first expansion (Make it Count) and the non-existent second expansion, but I think that's worth it.
Aside from that, this is a surprisingly good gangland empire management simulator that mostly takes place through XCOM-like battles. There's some very interesting social dynamics that make this feel like it's almost tipping into Dwarf Fortress territory or something with all the different interactions between different people. In terms of the main story itself, the storytelling is a bit muddled sometimes and it can sometimes feel like you don't have the most agency in some dialogues, but it's not a big deal since there's only so many types of ways a 1920s Chicago gangland leader can realistically act, really. The minute-to-minute gameplay is pretty great, as the combat is satisfying and there's always something new to work on, upgrade, conquer, etc.
If you generally like this type of game (well, a mix of XCOM-like tactics games, Tropico-like management games, Crusader Kings-like grand strategy games, etc.) and the setting is interesting to you, there's probably something for you to like here.