The game isn't different from anyother in the genre. Though it has good graphics, the game play is far behind.
First off you are either at war with a city or at peace with it. You can't deside that this one city has good recorces and yet a weak defence I'm going to take it over. You are either at war or at peace. The cities your at war at hardly ever attack you and if you deside to attack them, they're easy to beat plus you aren't very far into making your city, so you beat all the enemies and then right after you can make siege weapons, but alas there isn't anything to attack! Those peaceful cities will just give you recorces if you give them some and sometimes maybe a few troops but they never are attacked or attack anyone else.
Secondly, each mission, although it has a different objective, feels quite the same. You don't get to keep the buildings you've built or remember how to make them (like in Black and White) so you are never really improving your city besides having a better strategy (maybe).
Now for the ups...
Good graphics, voices are ok, every different envirment has different looks for the buildings, controls aren't difficult, the game isn't difficult (which is bad for me but may be good for people who are looking for a city builder rather than an rts), it is child friendly (so is Kingdom Hearts the best game ever... yes there is a little violence but no blood, busty chicks, or bad words), and thats all I can think off...
Downs:
Horrible AI, easy difficulty if you know your way around it, repeditive gameplay, overpriced ($50 bucks when I bought it, wasted!!!), not the most original game (much like Age of series and Black and White series), contained gameplay (you feel sorta trapped to building something over and over without change), and I know there is more but that is all I can think of.
Overall: Not worth the money!!! Buy something like Warcraft 3.