looks much better but it's got no soul, looks fancy but it's missing strategic depth, dissappointing for old fans
This is more like a feeling than a rationale thought so it's hard to explain why I felt this way but I'll try. I guess the first thing I can think of is the strategic feeling. In previous games I was always forced to review my actions, trains were always changing, cars added or removed, you had to keep an eye on what's happening with each train. I never felt it in this game, everything was a little linear, the only thing I had to do was to expand, expand and never look back.
One other little (big) thing is laying tracks, I never quite understood the logic of it in this one, strange double tracks, with strange cross lights, and trains choosing their path by an unknown logic, plus the impossibility to improve your tracks in some directions even it was obviously logic that this should be allowed.
The last thing is that there is nothing really new in this game that improves or at least change the gameplay; you could point the graphics and sound and few things here and there but the gameplay itself, the rules and things that make you think about how to play in different situations it's a little worse than it predecessors.
Considering that this gave has sid mayer's name in the title I would expect more, at least some improvements in the strategic side but this time I was disappointed.