I think it was well worth the 20$. I have sunk maybe 10-20 hours into it already. Thats a lot of entertainment for my $. I had done everything I wanted with IN.
As to people's complaints. People are just complainers. Could it be better sure. And if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its ass while it hopped. There is nothing broken about it that I have seen.
Through 125 years of one game I have seen zero major issues. Did have some CBs mysteriously disappear, but that is about it (I had a subjugate France mission, and it said if I decline it I would lose my Sub CB, but then I lost it after a few months anyway without declining and had to get a different CB to complete the mission).
HRE does seem to form pretty quickly, I thought that was theoretically supposed to be a rare event?