> One doesn't know if they're really going to like the game until they play it at least once, though. That is fair, for this I tend to rely on the same thing t

> One doesn't know if they're really going to like the game until they play it at least once, though. That is fair, for this I tend to rely on the same thing that I rely on for films and music: a group of friends with varying tastes in "game aesthetics", through which I can get a decent picture of a game by asking different people's opinions. It's easy to forget that this is a luxury not everyone has, though. RE: comparison to StarCraft: you're underestimating your pre-existing familiarity, forgetting that at one point you had to learn how RTSes work, and that the interface for them has not significantly changed in the last twenty years. Similarly, if you play a lot of board games, you'll notice a lot of mechanics are repeated between different games, and rules are a lot quicker to pick up than twenty minutes (it's kind of comparable to how learning programming languages becomes a lot easier after the first few). Yes, there obviously is more feedback in computer games, but on the other hand: the only reason you know how to use those units, is because they were introduced one at a time in a campaign. It is difficult to introduce a slow learning curve to boardgames, unless you start with simple rules and have an "advanced rules for experienced players" section that you can try out after a few games. That only works for a few types of games. Perhaps this is one of those things where mobile phone apps could help out?