Because when you're dealing with economic impact, quantity counts. If one poster expresses his dissatisfaction with a release while all others praise it, that has no impact whatsoever, because everyone knows you can't please everyone. If 50 posters express their dissatisfaction however, it's a different situation.
No, I think everyone expects Populous 2 to arrive eventually. However, they were expecting it to be released together with the first one in a single release. Since this is obviously not the case, it looks like it's going to end up as two sub-par releases instead of one really good one.
As I said before, it's important to say it a lot of times, since that shows the extent to which sales are lost. And if GOG needs arguments to convince EA to make better deals, a lot of complaints is much better ammunition in negotiations than a few complaints would be. Of course, if it's the same person saying the same thing over and over again, that doesn't really help.

Key concept here - quality, not quantity. Yes, there are 500 levels, but conceptually and stylistically they are pretty much all the same.

I remember the same arguments being bandied around when The Sentinel and Archipelagos came out in the 1980s. They used the thousands of levels ploy there too, although that said, the random seeding algorithm used in these games did ensure a sense of progression.

It's irrelevant how much money it actually is - I go for value for money. Populous 1 is just interesting as a predecessor to Populous 2. If you consider the game value, Populous 2 is simply better (and heck, I'd recommend getting WINUAE and finding the Amiga version for the first one anyway, because it was designed for Amiga - the PC version is quite inferior). It just makes sense to bundle the two because one is an update of the other - and P2 makes P1 a bit pointless

as usual, NO EXPANSION(S) NO BUY.
:(

Oh man. PLEASE say the Populous: The Beginning will be released aswell!

OH YES!

Okay, I will admit it, I got a little carried away, and you guys are right, this deal is not as good as most older game deals on GOG since Populous 1 and 2 are so similar to one another (this assumes of course GOG will be getting #2). I appologize. Understand though, that I feel lucky GOG is here at all, and to get this game that I have been waiting to play again for years, was sort of special for me...So I admit I got a little defensive...I hope nobody took any real offense...I still love you all :-) In addition, I dislike ploys to maximize profit that bussinesses do, as much ast the next person...and I do realize that this is just an attempt to squeeze the most money they can from people who like this series...Still, though, I was thankful GOG put it on their site, and since no one was forcing me to buy it, I didn't feel as though I was getting cheated..Though I freely admit, you are right, GOG and EA should know that we are wise to what they are doing, and even those of us who like these games, are not very happy about it...Though I am still overjoyed this game finally came here! =)

Again, Wishbone Pheace, Bazilisek, and anybody else, know I wasn't attacking you and didn't mean to offend either...I just wanted to look at this release as the glass was half full...because it was a special one for me...Peace all, and happy gaming. :)

For what it’s worth, I’m absolutely overjoyed that GOG re-published Populous. I understand why some are upset with the pricing and with a possible GOG/EA scheme to milk gamers but to be honest, this is one time when I’d have paid more than $5.99 for a working version of this game, ancient graphics and all.

Time to enjoy another round.