New game on Steam: "Chess 2: The sequel" variant of chess

Almost any variant does away with cconventional opening and end-game theory. As it goes Chess 2 struck me as a very weird one. It hardly feels like Chess. Especially the rule that you win by having your King cross the mid-line makes it a completely different game. That you have to auction for keeping your piece after it captured is also very much against the philosophy of Chess. Better play a dice game if you like this sort of thing...