Can anyone comment about Thunderstone's evolution?
I believe it was just a general Dominion clone at first with some twists. From what I read on the internet it has developed into a good game of its own with the later expansions.
Haven't had the chance to play this myself however.
I have the first two expansions for Thunderstone. I haven't really followed up with the others. Honestly, I haven't played Thunderstone in a while. Mostly, that's because TS games run longer, and it is more daunting for new players.
From what I've seen, they're introducing more player-damaging effects. I've seen more of the characters who damage others when played. There seems to be more multi-purpose cards. As you might know, in TS, you choose to go to the village or to the dungeon. Problem being, of course, that if you have village cards, then going to the dungeon sucks and vice-versa. So, having more flexibility is good too.
One thing about TS is that you can have some boring sets. In Dominion, if you have a poor kingdom, you still have Big Money to fall back on. There are threads about making the most useless Dominion kingdom. But, even the most useless of cards can still be used. Sure, they may not be optimal, but you can always make use of a Pearl Diver, Explorer, or Stash.
In TS, it's conceivable that you could draw cards that won't work. For example, some creatures require magic to defeat them. It's possible to lay out a village with no magic available. With each expansion, there are more options for this to happen. I haven't tried it, but I'm sure it's possible to have all three monsters require magic, which means that no one can defeat one of them. This can be fixed by sending one to the bottom of the deck, but that requires someone to essentially give up his turn. And that's boring anyway. TS players need to be experienced enough to realize when this happens (or just focus entirely on published lists).
I like the game. It has multiple resources to juggle (coins, attack strength, light, experience, strength). It's a Dominion clone only in the regard that it has the deck-building engine. Everything else is done differently, though.