I love the WOTW Mod, but i feel like Mars could benefit from a redesign.

 Right now it doesn't fell "Mars-y" enough, there's too much stuff laying around. I think that the Martian Forest should be way rarer, and that there should be less of these crystals on the ground. And the water just feels unrealistic and too much Overworld-like. My idea is that Mars should be more barren on surface but have a very rich and unique underground, making it effectively different to the Overworld. 

I know redesining an entire dimension would require quite a lot of work, and that right now your working mainly on DM 1.16, and by no means i'm saying that i don't like Mars right now; Mars is good, but it can be better.

The reason it does not feel Mars-like is because the vegetation look is something pictured in the original book, before we as humans ever really saw much of Mars. It's based on an outdated idea of what it could be like.

Because of this I do think it doesn't need to feel as barren, but you're right about how it could be made different by focusing more on the underground. So I think the ideas you suggested can be partly looked into!