Somewhere, the previously incredible formula has been lost.
Good features-
Amount of factions- With 24 and an average game taking over five hours, in theory you could spend quite a while playing with only playing each faction once.
Hexagon tiles- Makes movement feel more realistic and smooth.
Graphics- Very impressive but not that important in the quality of a game in my opinion.
Mediocre features-
City States- They did not have the impact that I thought they would. They start to feel like a burden as they constantly must be payed, protected and you pretty much have to get Social Policies if you choose to befriend them.
One unit per square- While it seems like it would make the game more tactical, it ends up being a nuisance as each individual unit must be moved to each tile.
Combat System- The reworked combat system works better however, the fact that cities are now considered units makes attacking very painful.
Poor features-
Happiness- There is no more individual city happiness. It's a collective nation happiness and is quite dumb.
The interface- It is way dumbed down. It seems like they were trying to make the game more approachable to newcomers but they end up making so easy that they distanced hard core fans.
Social Policies- So dumb. The civics in Civ 4 were so much better.
AI- Very stupid, one turn they will align with you, the next they attack you. Or you offer a treaty and they deny it, next turn they propose the same treaty back.
Expanding- You have to buy tiles? It was mind boggling when I saw this.
I could go on and on with features but will stop there. 1UP gave the game a 50. CPUgamer gave it a 70. Sure you could argue that those are the minority of reviewers, but in this case, I have to agree with them.