After having played this game extensively since I acquired it, I am posting this review in the hopes of addressing the points made in the negative review above, as the reviewer clearly does not understand the purpose of this game. This is going to be somewhat lengthy, will try to summarize at the top.
TLDR; Pro's and con's below. If you came here expecting standalone chess look elsewhere, if you are interested in a sandbox experience where you can create your own units read on.
First and foremost I would like to point out something that I believe is the reason for said reviewers negative perception of this game, and that is that Wardens is NOT chess. If you go into Wardens expecting standalone chess, you will be disappointed. At present the only resemblance this game has to chess is the movement and arrangement of the pieces (for now), and that it is played on a chess board. However, despite one of the default game types being Capture the King, Wardens lacks practically all other basic chess rules, such as en passante, castling, and most importantly, check. As your goal in the aforementioned game mode is to KILL the king, not checkmate him. This was done so as to introduce the concept of the abilities in a familiar way without overwhelming the player. As for the abilities being boring, I admit that I myself do not care for the starting decks. That is because those decks are more useful as templates, to showcase possible abilities and help you to make your own. So the abilities are only as boring as you make them. Granted the amount of things you can do at the moment is a bit limited, but there is a surprising amount of versatility with what is already there. With the tools currently available, I have created over 4 pages worth of cards, with varied abilities including, but not limited to, things such as a unit that when they have sufficient mana they and surrounding allies cannot be frozen, a unit that has an ability that grants permanent attack immunity until next overtake (akin to stealth), and a unit that allows allies to cast their abilities for free provided they have sufficient mana for said ability, although this requires (for now) compatibility to be integrated into the other units in order to work, as does my most recent unit, which will allow nearby allies to cast their abilities for 3 mana less. The list goes on, and it will only improve with time as more things become available.
I have been in near constant contact with the developer via Discord, and he was very helpful and open to feedback, such as the implementation of the ice trail. Not sure what the reviewer means by poor board readability, as I have not had any problems with it; if ever in doubt as to who's turn it is there is a handy indicator that shows you. Also not sure about the lack of tutorial; while it is true that there is no tutorial as far as scripting goes, there is currently a let's play video on this very page that serves as a sort of tutorial, and the developer is working on making the editor more intuitive, as this is where Wardens begins to show some of it's rough edges. But the Discord is more than sufficient for that; I am surprised the reviewer seems not to have made use of it....
Concerning the AI, it is true that it isn't the greatest, and it is only tooled for the default Capture the King mode. But that is one of many; I myself have made 2 modes thus far, one in which your goal is to destroy ALL pieces, which the AI fares significantly better at, and one in which your goal is pretty much the opposite of the default; you are to kill the opposing army and SPARE the king. There is also hotseat, which is mostly what I play, and online, which is currently dead, no doubt owing to the extremely small if not non-existent playerbase. Custom content must also be submitted and verified before it can be used online, although I have not attempted this yet.
All in all, this is one of the best games I've found on Steam in a very long time; if you like designing your own content and aren't afraid to put in the work, you will be richly rewarded. And I am told the developer has some future plans which will make this game even better. So if you can overlook the rough spots, I think you'll find a gem worth keeping.
Pro's: Decent music
Decent default artwork
A good amount of versatility, despite the limited options at present
Discord is a good source for all your needs; the developer is friendly, helpful, and open to feedback
Cons: Editor is somewhat unintuitive for a beginner, as it is not clear how certain things work, or why they don't. You can
also script things that are, in fact, not possible, a good example is things concerning magic immunity.
Has some bugs, the developer is working on them, but they are there.
Is a bit limited at the moment, but this should improve with time.
Online is dead, hopefully this will improve with time; use hotseat or play with friends for now. You can also try Discord
Needs a guide on how to implement custom artwork, at present this must be done manually outside of the game. It
isn't hard to do, but beginners might be initially confused, as there is no ingame way to do so at present
