Has improved dramatically with each new patch. This is one of the most fun games I have.
The game involves basic city building to get an economy going, followed by warfare to conquer your neighbours territory. The economy side of the game is interesting enough without being overly burdensome. The warfare strategy aspect is more simplified than the Total War series, but more action oriented and a little bit more fun. Put together these two aspects make for about 4-8 hours of varied gameplay, a good way to spend and evening.
Granted, the story modes, where you play through a series of increasingly difficult levels, are a bit lame. (I've yet to find a game that doesn't have a lame story mode.) They are best considered as tutorials for what should be the main event - skirmish mode. Once you think you have the hang of things, there is little to compel you to finish them.
Skirmish mode is a free-for-all battle against a selectable number of opponents, which can be made up of AI or online players. If you play against the AI, a bit of experimentation will reveal which AI like to attack early, which are fairly passive and which are more aggressive later on in the game. With a bit of thought and experience you can thus tailor a game to your own difficulty level and keep it interesting throughout. In this sense, maybe the game is laking, since there is no simple way to set the difficulty; you can't just jump in to a game knowing how hard it will be.
I wanted a castle builder for ages, and finally I have one. The game rewards the person who will persist with it; learn it's quirks. It may not have the best front end and it may take some experience to get the best out of it, but once you have a good game set up, it's heaps of fun, very playable with heaps of replay value.