Been desperate to try this great looking game here in the UK so decided to go for the download ahead of the UK release. Thought it would be easy, anything but! To start with, when I start SDC, it asks for a user name and password, despite that being implied as optional when I purchased. Dutifully I type them in, but I repeatedly get "Your nickname is in use", with nowhere to type a nickname. So I bypass the login screen, and follow the instructions from my purchase to register my game. The SDC GUI isn't very much like the instructions suggest and I have to guess how to proceed. Multiple attempts at registering seem to fail silently, and finally I realise that login really is required-- so I locate the screen with the nickname, and type the same password I used when I purchased, but it turns out that I need to use an activation URL from an email I've been sent -- nowhere in SDC does it suggest that I will already have received this email and I should check for it. Did the people who developed this thing not realise that people buy and play games for fun? -- the reason I bought the game is cos I'm tired of the real world and want a break from hassle, not more form filling bureaucracy.

I remain optimistic about Sins itself... I'm a big fan of turn based strategy and enjoy RTS games too like C&C (in moderation), total anihilation (not in moderation), etc.

T