I'm having second thoughts about the game right now. It's probably better than I thought. It just takes you a while to get to grips with the new interface and the new techs and so on.

In fact at this stage, I'm inclined to go out on a limb and say I think it's probably considerably better than Civ3. There seem to be a lot more options and strategies you can employ, like the new Civics for example.

It's a game that really rewards a bit of careful study. A read of the manual, especially the tech tree, doesn't go astray.