Surviving Mars is a marvelous experience of city building, management, exploration and strategizing. Overall polish and good production values all around complete a deep and interesting package that will make genre enthusiasts and Mars fanatics very, very happy.

Quotation forthcoming.

Slow but hypnotically absorbing building strategy game. You will feel great while conquering the inhospitable planet, pity for designer’s mistake in not being able to connect the domes. [Issue#285]

It is such a pity that Surviving Mars is infested by frustrating bugs, is at times unclear and has some resource balancing issues. Because, despite these problems, it is still a fun game, bursting with potential.

During the middle-game the process becomes blatantly boring: as your colony steadily grows, your biggest struggle will be with interface and lack of automation for certain tasks. After hours of going through the motions, you’ll wonder if moving to Mars was a good idea in the first place. [Issue#228, p.48]

A solid colony builder packed with complex systems, but the red planet feels a little too familiar. [Apr 2018, p.81]

I eventually stopped playing after about 30 hours because the game was just too mind-numbingly boring to continue. I was also shocked that I had only played for 30 hours. It felt like at least twice that long.