Great strategy game but lacks the awe inspiring greatness and soul of its predecessors
The same can't be said be the game's art, for a lack of a better word. Gone are epic movies, the music, and the awe inspiring greatness of building a world wonder. There are brief movies for each wonder and technology discovered but they're bland and devoid of a soul. On previous games, building the Colossus or the Hanging Gardens had an emotional impact and a satisfaction way beyond the civilization bonuses it conferred. On Civ V, I can't shake the feeling it's nothing but +8 gold or +10 food.
Game play wise, the changes are solid. Here's a few examples: the old square grid was replaced by an hexagonal grid, which allows deeper and better combat options; cities can now defend themselves without a garrisoned unit so you won't lose a size 10 city to a wandering barbarian; happiness is empire based rather than city based; government types and religion have been replaced by cultural traits, tailored to each victory condition.
Those are radical changes that will force one to review the old ways of playing the game. Strategies such as the Infinite City Sprawl (madly building cities, regardless of location) or the Stack of Death (stacking a deadly combination of units and wiping everything on its path) no longer work so players are encouraged (or forced) to adapt and try different strategies.
The interface is intuitive and on lower difficulty levels, one doesn't need to worry about managing every resource or allocating workers on specific tiles, as the AI is smart enough to accomplish the job. Unless you like the challenge of playing the game on the hardest difficulty levels, allocating citizens to specific tiles or manually choosing specialists won't be required at all.
Victory conditions allow plenty of replay value as each requires wildly different strategies. On previous games, a diplomatic victory was only achieved if you had an army capable of conquering every enemy and even the cultural victory required a massive empire. On Civ V, each victory condition requires a given strategy with almost mandatory cultural traits, empire size and military power. Going for war will surely mean that an opponent will be ahead on the technology tree, trying to achieve a cultural victory is to relinquish a stronger military and so on.
There are some issues with graphics. The engine is demanding regardless of your system, it takes quite a bit to load a game and the terrain is uneven if you pan your screen.
The game's sound effects are great but the musical themes are disappointing, to say the least. Instead of using soothing or encouraging tunes, each civilization has its own musical scores. It's great if your playing the French or the Russians but its an ear splintering experience if you're playing the Japanese and even worse if you're playing with the Egyptians. It's so awful I've turned off the music, which is a great shame for a Civilization game.
So, strategy wise it's a great game but it lacks the art and I'd dare say the soul of former games. Worth checking out but it certainly could've been better.