[sffrrrom]

Firstly, Brad isn't an average CEO. Stardock is a privately run company, so it's not like he has to answer to the shareholders, and Brad has always been deeply involved in the trenches, so to speak. While he has been known to take criticism poorly, and this is a prime example of that, I'd much rather he continue to lose his temper once in a while and still be actively involved in the community. Also, the review, while fairly accurate in a variety of extents, struck me as somewhat disingenuous in their use of that quote.

Secondly, the reason Elemental's release was so rocky is that several retailers broke the street release date. While the game still would have been rough around the edges without this (notably with respect to balance, which is still remarkably poor, a fact I've been critical of in the Elemental forums) many of the unplayability bugs and crashes probably would not have been large issues if people had been able to access the Day 0 builds properly, which would have happened if the street release had gone as planned.

That said, I really couldn't recommend buying Elemental right now. Personally, I'm just sticking it on the shelf for a month or two till it gets better balanced.