Yeah, thats my biggest dislike too. All Gods should have viable endgame-options.
But it's especially noticeable on those gods, that rely on corpses.
I dunno, are gods designed so that they should be equally useful throughout the game. I haven't used most of them, but if you look at the standard Okawaru to The shining one, it's very common, and it works very well. Okawaru can be played late game, but there gets to a point where you don't need anymore gifts, the bonus skill boost doesn't matter, and you don't need finnese when you have haste. On other hand TSO would be difficult in the beginning, no gifts, very slow to get piety, and you don't fight many demons and undead until much later.
Like:
PERMADEATH. It really changes the way I look at games. If I play any other game where you can reload your save after dying, it nearly feels like cheating. Death, or losing, forces you to evaluate what went wrong, what you can do to fix it and improve upon next time. Usually there's something you could have done better or safer, but there are times especially in the early game where you lost for no reason other than dumb luck. But that's life!
Tiles are well done, I do enjoy them, I can't imagine playing on the console ASCII version.
I feel like there are a variety of effective playstyles and races and you get to find out what works especially for you.
Dislike:
I kinda wish the races were more balanced. It's not bad, but some seem clearly superior than others. I got my first win with a melee warper/crusader type high elf. I then wanted to try and win the game with a spellcasting nuker. High elf is not only a good choice for nuking, but one of the best if not the best well-rounded race for that. Spellcasting is so important, so other races might stand out more if others had a positive spellcasting aptitude. I suppose they don't all have to be good, some just seem more more versatile and usable than others.
I understand that the game has roots in hardcore ASCII stuff, but maybe the tiles interface could have some more graphical options for customization? A way for you to change all the options without having to dig through config files.
Food isn't awful, but it feels mostly like a system to make spellcasters less powerful, as in without high spellcasting and intelligence there's only so many bolts of fire you can cast at honeycomb hunger before having to eat or run away. Otherwise it's there to force you to keep moving and prevent scumming which I guess is ok, but the abyss and pan still exists for scumming needs. It'd be neat if you could take chunks and cook them to make them last longer, or even keep them in a refrigerator, though I don't know how to fit that in.
The biggest gripe is the community. It's just not big enough! The people are mostly friendly, but it feels like a ghost town here compared to larger games. This isn't really a fault of the developers or anyone else, it's just the nature of game having a high learning curve and requires a lot of patience. Maybe people don't feel like they'd have enough time to learn it, or just don't know about it. I just found out about it through reading the questionable content webcomic, would never be here otherwise. I think it's worth saying though that once you're comfortable with it, it's the easiest game to just pick up and play for how ever long you want, be it a couple minutes or longer. Loading doesn't take long and you save at any time with no penalty, it's all turned based!