I currently don't have the game (both of my computers can't run it) and want to wait on what others say about it before investing, but I will say this on the roster: we were going to have to face the fact that a lot of animals we wanted weren't going to make the cut. I have no doubt that Frontier is planning on keeping many species held-back for dlc in the future, which stinks but when you think about it, which everyday player is going to want to buy an Australian pack and not expect kangaroos? Or an African pack without large mega-fauna like rhinos? These dlc needs charismatic animals to man the handle and to encourage people to purchase them.
I will say this about the roster, there were only a handful of choices that I was unhappy about. I'm still confused by the Himalayan brown bear, still seems very unnecessary to me. I would've chosen an Andean bear instead since we already have two different Asian bear species, and that would give us another south american animal. I also don't understand how there are aardvarks and pangolins in the game, yet leave out the most popular insect-eating zoo animal (giant anteater)? I would've also removed the nyala and thomson's gazelle with more unique hoofstock (nilgai to fit the Indian theme, and aoudad so we have a goat/sheep while keeping the largely African theme of the game. I surprisingly don't have a problem with a Bengal and an Siberian tiger both being in the game as it gives us two animals to place in two different themes. I also think that the aldabra tortoise could've been swapped for something like a bird like a crane, stork, or pelican species. Lastly, I wish that the terrarium animals were more diverse; we have a lot of invertebrates with a lot of overlapping (lots of spiders, not enough of creatures like stick insects), and I also think there could be more amphibian (we only have frogs), and reptiles (two iguanas and gila monsters for lizards, six snakes, and no turtles or small tortoises).
That being said, I like this roster. There are still absences that should be in the base game (jaguar, leopard, polar bear, penguin, otter, meerkat, deer, African rhinos, sheep/goats, kangaroos, baboons, new world monkeys) but keep in mind, it's perhaps the most biodiverse base game roster in zoo gaming history; which other zoo-simulator can you get all four great ape species as base animals, and contains cockroaches and beetles!? And as mentioned, although there are blaring absences, we actually have a lot of the animals that we complained about in Frontiers zoo tycoon games that were left out (gorillas, orangutans, zebras, ostrich, cheetahs, wolves, bison, pandas, old-world monkeys etc.).
