I'm a builder. I like creating things. Creating buildings, finely crafted communities, cool dynamic systems of production, water, magma, whatever. I like putting things together in creative ways to solve non-trivial problems.
Dwarf Fortress tantalizes me with so many possibilities of this form, but I've gotten to the point where I feel that the promise that the game offers are superficial. Biggest problem would be the interface; it completely gets in the way of actually playing the game the way that I would enjoy it most. In addition, many of the elements of the game break down just at the point where dynamic systems start to get interesting, whether it be the behaviors of dwarves, the behaviors of weapons and traps, the behaviors of water and magma, the behavior of cave-ins, et cetera.
That, and I'm a software engineer who also has a significant interest in game design (and by that I do mean design, specifically, not just generic development), so it gets frustrating that I can't get my hands on any code, to fix up the game in various ways that would make it more enjoyable for myself. It feels like there are just so many little tweaks that could be made relatively quickly, but they simply aren't a high priority for Tarn, given his unique perspective of the game. (And I don't want to come across as critical of his choices and priorities; they generally make a lot of sense to me. I just know that I'd make different choices, e.g., make an interface which is far more transparent than the current one. And yes, I know all the arguments against doing so; they're good arguments, just not good enough for me; interface is that important.)
So at this stage, I find that playing the game just results in a lot of frustration over what I feel the game could be but isn't. Which is often what I think about any game that I've gotten to know well enough. At least this one is obviously still under quite active development, which is why I still hang around the forums and watch the devlog. But that doesn't make it any less frustrating. Oh well; I'll deal.