Basicly a simplified Empire: TW clone with better graphics.
As you probarly guessed, I am sort of disapointed to what Napoleon total war brings. The story of Napoleon is well done, yet when you play a (grand campaign) you'll quicly notice that it is pretty dull and repetive and doesn't have nearly as much content as Empire. Naval units are pretty much useless now since there is only one theatre to fight in Europe, and the rewards are too few to sustain a capable navy in order to keep control of the recourse nodes. Making land battle pretty much the only viable option. Additionaly the countries you get to pick from are significantly less then any other Total War since Shogun.
Ofcourse it's not all bad, the combat system has been improved significantly compared to Empire: Total war and apart of some pretty big but avoidable bugs (such as cavalary getting stuck in buildings when placed near a building) the combat is a real treat. Maily thanks do to improved graphics and better tweaking of certain unit types such as cavalary making them more viable.
I sort of wished CA had put more effort into finnaly fixing Empire so I can finnaly finnish a long campaign. Then again this is the more proffitable thing to do I guess. If you ask me though not worth the € 39,99 spend on it.