So I played about an hour's worth of the Civ5 demo (downloaded via Steam). The full game was released this week, but I'm not going to purchase it right away.

First impressions are "there's something interesting here" - but there's not enough in the demo to suck me in (I quit before I reached the 100 turn limit). Compared to Civ4:BtS - Civ5 is extremely simplified and stripped down to the bare foundation. No corporations or religions or other features that were added on to Civ4 vanilla with the two expansions (Warlords and Beyond the Sword).

I really like the "1 unit per tile" (1upt) limitation - I think that's going to be interesting. The downside is that you can't mix and match your units to form a stack/group that is easy to move around and has a good mix of troops that shore up each others weaknesses. But we get ranged attacks, which will mean a more interesting battle that spans across a front of half a dozen hexagons instead of being single tile warfare.

The hexagons are going to be good. Better then the square play grid of Civ4 and the older versions. Hexagons feel more natural, but it will take a bit to get used to it.

The graphics and the user interface design leave a good bit to be desired. A lot of things are "brighter on bright" with not enough contrast. The Civ4 UI was much more relaxing and easy on the eyes.

I'll take another run or two at the demo this weekend, maybe it will click more. But right now, I'm leaning towards "don't buy until the first major patch" and possibly even "wait for the expansion to flesh out the game".

Reviews:

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