Frankly, I think hoping this was a clone of Lab Rats (1) was clearly stated to not be the goal. It's connection to the original is mostly in the concept of producing behavior altering chemicals. In the end, it's a business simulator with sexy time. If that isn't your type of game... there are about a million RenPy games on here with a plot of "corrupt your innocent Mom/Sister/Aunt" titles you may enjoy better.
Poopooing a new game concept based on the development state and it not being a retread of the old game is pretty lame. We need MORE variety in this space and MORE ideas tried. And bashing this one far more harshly just because the developer already had a successful game is particularly strange.
I have faith this is going to end up being a great and wholly unique game in this space. I wish it had some more kinks in play... but those may also come in time.
There are tons of "producing behavior altering chemicals".
Problem is, this game has nothing to do with the first and the developer is just using its name to attrack unaware players to try a completely different game.
If this game didnt have the Lab Rats title, then i would be ok with it. But this is supposed to be a sequel to a great game, and in reality its not.
Its just the developer milking a successfull IP to do a completely and quite frankly opposite game from the first.
And that is something honest developers dont do.
If the developer wanted to make a "business simulator with sexy time", go for it, but dont use the name of a game that wasnt that to get views to something people are not looking for.
It sucks when EA does it, it sucks when Square Enix does it, it sucks when Ubisoft does it, and it sucks when VRen does it