The time killer is here.
The sheer amount of time you can invest in this game and still have a new experience dwarfs anything on the PC, including WoW. When you add in mods and customizing anything you want, well, it could be a new game every day if you wanted. Civ V will eat your time up and will impact your life because you will simply be so engrossed that you will need to set a timer to remind you that you have to go to work, eat, sleep, or pee.
The visuals are awesome if you have the money and power. But, if you are like me who just makes it over the min requirements, the game does scale quite nicely for us. The game offers two directx modes. One for 9 and another for 10/11. 9 runs as you would think an old directx would run, very well. 10/11 is really for the people with the latest tech and the newest drivers. I'm sure some tweaking could make it run better on old tech but unless you gotta have those small visual perks, 9 will take care of your needs.
I agree that it would be nice if there was more leaders to choose from but it's not a deal breaker or even a concern. Would you rather have more civs like Spain or more leaders that you'll never use? The religion and gov have more or less been included with the new Polices feature. Think of it as mini trees that you use to win the game and give you bonuses to other parts of the game.
The old school people like to bitch about the trade and diplomacy. The main QQ seems the lack of trading technology. Zomg, they'll actually have to do some work of their own. That was replaced by the research coop. You and another civ put in 250 gold each and after a bit, you will get a random tech researched. Seems a better system then having a rich civ being able to buy all the tech they want from a poor civ.
I wonder if the people who think the diplomacy is broke actually know what diplomacy is? Oh noeees they won't trade me their luxory resource, the game is broken!!111!1 Dumb ass, they are just better at diplomacy then you. You think they will give you pearls for 50 gold? Even if you would take 50g for a resource don't mean they have to or even need to. I've had the AI do every type of diplomacy with me. We've traded 1:1 on resources, I've sold resources for hundreds of gold, I've done coop, secret, and a hella lot of research. I've been asked to go to war. I've had civs hostile to me but then fine after I did some trading with them.
Every bitch, whine, QQing sob I've seen on the forums here and other places have been the result of poor playing or not understanding the part of the game they have a issue with. Or, just too damn stubborn to learn the new aspects of the game. Fine, keep playing the super polished, twice expanded Civ IV and then come over to V after a couple patches but until then, STFU, nobody cares.
Oh and people, get over it, steam isn't awesome but it's not the horrible DRM of other games. You can install the game as much as you want, you can play it offline once you install it. You have 10 save slots that are on steam so you can load your game ANYWHERE you have Civ V and internet access.
Bottom line, if you like turned based games with near unlimited options then get this game. It will be expanded and improved to make it even better. Its a wise investment.
