Panic Sell

This is terrible.

Minimal gameplay, deeply counterintuitive UI, and ridiculous grind to get the achievements (and you can only get 19/20 after 100 hours, last one would take 5+ years)

1/10 at least your not wasting real money
just real time

Panic Sell is a brainless clicker/incrementer... you know the type, click on stuff to make numbers go up so you can buy stuff to help you click on stuff to make numbers go up so you can buy stuff to... you get the idea. The brainless gameplay is, unsusprisingly, accompanied with an equally low quality technical implementation and poor presentation, resulting in yet another horribly low quality shovelware game that might as well have been done in a web browser.

This differs from most clickers in that the progression system is (badly) modeled after cryptocurrency trading rather than just "click and the numbers go up", but the ultimate end here is the same... pointless number watching. And the most disgusting part about this is the "content" for the game is locked behind DLC that you have to buy. This is not free; the developer abuses the "free" section of Steam for profit.

For gameplay purposes, because the user interface for this game is mostly just 2D static text/images... it might as well be a web page. It's functionally no different from a browser game. And we all know, Steam isn't here to compete with Chrome and Firefox. If the game can be done in a web browser, it's just not rich or compelling enough to appeal to serious gamers on PC.

This game features very lacklustre minimalist "art" for graphics instead of anything remotely contemporary. I'm sure the "developer" thought this would come across as "artistic", but it doesn't, it comes across as "really lazy". Yes, contemporary 3D graphics take a lot of time and effort to create. That doesn't mean it's okay not to bother! Developers must try to understand that gaming is a visual medium, and gamers spend a lot of money on high end gaming rigs for a reason. And that reason is not so they can look at lazy, phoned-in half efforts like this.

Now on to pricing and value for gamers.

You're expected to pay up $30 USD to unlock content through DLC purchases. That's right, this is paygated with an INSANE price structure... THIRTY UNITED STATES DOLLARS. The game should not be considered completely unlocked until you empty your wallet for the developer. This is misleading and predatory pricing on a product falsely marketed as "free". Utterly unacceptable, scamlike behaviour that must not be tolerated.

In terms of public reception, this failed. There's over 130 million unique gamers visiting Steam every month. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 5 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away.

Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it?

Nope. I didn't have to pay for this, but I still feel like I got scammed.