If you will allow me to say so,
“I hate corporate art.”
This game is so very light on graphics, it would not take considerable effort to replace all of the art.
The art, itself - the visual style of the game - is “The Sims”-esque, lowest common denominator, vile, and basically makes me want to deliberately oppress these people. This style definitely appeals to a majority of people, but I’m not sure if there is any significant intersection between that majority, and the sorts of people who actually want to play such an autistic game.
Mods should do some repaints if they haven’t already, and devs should A/B test these with existing players to see if they actually prefer them.
I would say that the style should be sober, mature, darker, nuanced, detailed, and above all, more realistic, to give the player the immersive illusion of the real humanity affected by his decisions. It could also use more variety, as I’m stuck seeing the same faces over and over again, and for simplicity, modders could source everything from the public domain.
The current style may appeal to most people, but Democracy 4 is not a game for most people, and never will be.
This is probably the best question that can be explored in terms of increasing game reception. All of the rough edges on balance are only discovered once you have, in effect, gotten to the end of the game.