First Impressions
I just LOVE that this got smashed in transit! I get to have the "Whoops, I sat on this!" look of the box for no additional labor of actually sitting on it. What an bonus! I know shipping stuff is a lot of roll the dice and overall I have been lucky. If it had to happen to anything I have ordered over the past few years, I am happy it happened to the set that was all 1x1 tiles and not say a set where the box is worth saving. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to exchange based on the box being damaged in transit if it was say, a set bought for an investment but this was bought from Target, not directly from Lego that does a generally good job packing for the rigors of shipping.
Actual first impressions are that the box is going to contain about 500 parts that I won't use but for $19.99 it was the least worst option to get up to free shipping and maybe I'll like it.
Parts
Out of 11 bags contained in the box, maybe 5 total (including 2 halves) are what I was hoping for and of those, they were the smaller bags. I had figured of the 1040 parts half would be unusable for my purposes but I was not expecting only about one third to be.
Build
While shuffling around for pics of the bag contents, I made this fish mosaic. Modern! Also without instructions I'm not sure how I get my free Taco on Tuesday with this set.
Random Rant
The direction Lego seems to have been going the last few years after I got on the AFOL train seems to be towards... less creative kids without the imagination that was needed when I was younger to really get the money's worth of enjoyment out of the set. I suppose DOTS and to maybe a lesser extent the Art collection is supposed to be bringing some of that creativity back towards some Lego lines with including just an inspiration sheet for this set. Looking back I suppose there was some of this but most sets now don't included an alternate build unless you get a creator 3-in-1 set and that's adult designers figuring it out. Many sets contain a lot more specific parts that lessen the ability to make say a Benny style spaceship with a mishmash of parts from kit bashing. I will however grant that I don't recall too much else about Lego when I was younger other than I really liked building new things. This enjoyment and becoming an AFOL came back when I bought my nephew a couple of pounds of bulk Lego when he was coming to visit one year so I have not been following previous trends that closely.
The one fancy set I got as a kid that I remember for Christmas was the Space Police II Solar Snooper, which I recently bought on eBay to try and get some nostalgia in my life during the pandemic (sadly that failed). If I was to review that set today, it would be full of good parts that could be fitted to a number of applications. On the other hand it is far from as polished as the new sets are. The world has changed radically in the previous 25 years and I'm sure we will not even be able to start to grasp the full effect that the internet, food production, family and cultural shifts has had on children for another 25 years. I hope I am wrong about the level of creativity being lower.
Minifigures
N/A
Set Elements
... the Lego ideas sheet lends itself to hide a Dogecoin meme?
Behold my graphic design skills with MS Paint!
Frustrations
There are a lot more bright and happy colors than others. I was hoping really hard for an even ratio of drab and depressing colors. The target age group for the DOTs collection is quite young and without the reality of having a soul crushing job or bills, they are quite happy so perhaps that is what is going on here.
Final Thoughts & Recommendations
Strong Buy - I would think about picking up a few more of these if they go on sale. I wouldn't go out of my way to buy most of these shapes and colors aftermarket, but having a couple boxes will help when I want to make some more colorful MOC features to create some variation in builds so they are not just monoliths of dark blueish grey.
I love the fish mosaic you made!😍