Keep in mind that this review is from someone who has only read the book, not actually played the game.

While I see a lot of ideas in this game that I really like (the cycle of Themes and their extreme ends, the use of tags to produce Power rather than stats, a really interesting setting), I feel like in a some ways it doesn't quite hit the mark. I think it overcomplicates the PbtA style a little too much and the setting didn't always feel entirely consistent with itself. The layout of the chapters is a little strange as well. It starts with a description of the setting, then goes into character creation, then the mechanics of the game. There were certain points in the first chapter and especially in the second chapter where I was pretty lost in the terms the book was throwing around. Having read and played many other PbtA games, I had some pretty good educated guesses about some that turned out to be correct, but there were others that left me completely in the fog (baddum-tsch) until I reached the relevant entry in the third chapter. I would recommend reading chapter three and then going back to character creation.

Would have given it a 3.5 if that was an option. There are definitely more good things than questionable ones and I'd be interested in seeing how a lot of the decisions actually translated into play.

Enjoyed this expansion overall. I feel like the playbooks aren't quite what I was looking for, though. A couple of them seemed a little too similar to Apocalypse World playbooks and I didn't feel like the factions most of them are associated with fit my perception of them. This isn't to say that I hated them, or anything. I thought there were some great ideas in there. I just feel like they might not be up to par with the original iteration.

On the other hand, the city examples are fantastic. They're a great resource for creating and fleshing a city, or just to use in and of themselves to save some time.