Elemental: War of Magic - Reviews @ GameShark, Out of Eight

A couple of reviews for Elemental.  Strategy specialist Troy Goodfellow goes for a 'C' at GameShark:

A few hours with Elemental are enough to impress you. The world is generic, but the game map always seems alive. The continent is full of fantasy tropes like lost treasure and inns with mysterious quest givers as well as rival empires and dangerous random beasties. Then you advance your technology and uncover abandoned temples, dragon eggs, and new metals that make your soldiers the most deadly in the world. Stardock's turn based strategy game is one of the first to bring a fantasy novel backstory to life.

But a little learning is a dangerous thing and those first few hours are deceptive. By your second campaign you realize how many of these quests repeat from game to game, so fetching that dragon egg is not much of an adventure any more. The richness of the tech tree doesn't carry over to the magic system, which becomes repetitive and boring very quickly. By the end of the second few hours, you will have seen almost all Elemental has to show you.

Out of Eight says 5/8, which translates to 'C-':

As you might imagine, Elemental: War of Magic features magic. There are four main spellbooks: earth, air, fire, and water, plus summoning and enchantments and some advanced books that are unlocked with research. The spells come in tactical (for battles) and strategic (for the game world) flavors. Disappointing, most of the spell categories offer up the same types of spells: offensive weapons, attribute bonuses, and pets. I fail to see the difference between a throwing a fireball and throwing a boulder (so why have both?). Spellbooks fail to retain any source of individuality, save for a couple of high-level spells. Some of the spells are cool, though, especially those that alter the game world and inhibit enemy cities. Controlling a shard of a particular spellbook makes those spells more powerful, so there is some luck in that you find shards of the same type you set up your character with. I never found the need to specialize in more than two (and usually one would suffice) spellbooks, since each one has a number of tactical and strategic spells and there is significant overlap of spell abilities. Overall, I think the spells could use a lot more variety and individuality.