The game is certainly a little rough at the moment, but this is to be expected from a game made as a passion project by one developer from the Netherlands. However, despite the roughness that this early build has, it is already a wonderfully enjoyable game even in it's current state, and that roughness can also lead to some very interesting, hair-raisingly exciting moments. Such as the moments where you encounter a quad loop, or one of the rare spirals with a loop planted right in the middle of it, out in the wilderness, and you're so awesome by how big and impressive and cool this section of track is that you realize *almost* too late that some Mauraders have set up a roadblock in a relatively blind section of it, or a piece of the track was spawned partially underground, and you have to lock the brakes and skid to an emergency stop just before you would have crashed into the barriers at the break in the track. (This IS actually pretty fun, and it really gets the blood going)
Now granted, there are still some bugs and weird features, which is to be expected from a game in such an early stage of Early Access being made by one Developer, Mr. Roy van Ophuizen.
For example, there is always a fixed "front" to your train that you can't change. When want to add cars to your train with the current system, it will add them to the relative rear of the train, but if you accessed the station with the "rear" locomotive, it will do this once and then forcefully move your train so the front locomotive is accessing the station, even if this means that your train will then plow it's way through a dozen innocent motorists' cars and tank your reputation. This also means that presently it is annoying, but not impossible, to customize the order of your Hypertrain' carraiges to an extent (like having all your passenger wagons in one string at one end of the consist by only adding them one at a time to the "front" of the train by accessing stations with the "rear" locomotive), but this specifically is essentially a non-issue because, in the next update (v0.4.5, coming in about a week or two ATTOW), Roy/NKM will be adding another UI element in stations where you can manually rearrange the order of your train's cars and sell ones you don't want anymore.
However the best part of this game, in my opinion, has four main elements to it:
1. There is a huge amount of potential contained within this seemingly tiny package, and the places that it could go are basically limitless within the game's concept.
2. NKM is active and passionate about the game he's building and the experience it will be able to give the players.
3. NKM is actively connected with the game's budding and growing playerbase and is very open to suggestions and feedback, positive and otherwise, about what the players feel that they want/need and what they are displeased with.
4. The game's community is active, excited, and supportive of NKM's efforts and progress, but we also recognize and understand that he's just one human being and he has a more "conventional" life outside of working on Hypertrain. He really enjoys working on the game, but he IS only really able to do it in his spare time, rather than more or less doing this continuously.
I purchased Hypertrain when it was 25% off during the first weekend of its Early Access release, so I got it for $7.49, but with what I have experienced already in my ~23 hours (ATTOW) of playing Hypertrain, I wouldn't hesitate to pay $20 for this, and with how passionate and involved the relationship is between NKM and the community, I personally wouldn't be too opposed to spending $25 or $30 on this game.
TL;DR: Give this wonderful man your money and support. Get this game, its well worth the price. Love it for what it is and be eager for what it could easily mature into, and spread the word to your friends, especially anyone who likes trains.
8/10 in its current state (ea V0.4.4), 9.2/10 taking into account the speed, progress, and quality of the ongoing development.
