You can also use Twig as template engine. Not a big deal.

I'm inclined to agree with adamors, any time a framework says you can plugin any templating engine, it's almost always more of a hassle than not. If you choose a templating engine that is not a first class citizen of the framework, you're often blocked from key features or functionality offered by the framework. Even if a third party library bridges the feature gap, that library often trails development of the framework or ends up unmaintained and outdated.

I also agree that it's disappointing Twig wasn't selected. It's syntax is incredibly common among templating engines so ramp up time for new developers is usually short - and once you get into the more complex features it's pretty dang cool.

That wasn't really my point. Yet another PHP templating engine is a code smell to me. Or project smell, if you wish.

Pretty sure Razor is a .NET thing. This looks like the same syntax. The Play framework's Scala based template engine is based on it as well.

There is at least one other popular PHP templating engine based on Razor, called Blade.