RTW was unplayable? Really?

Here are a list of review scores at the time:

Gamespot: 9.1
Gamespy: 4.5/5
Eurogamer: 9/10
IGN.com: 9.4/10
AVault: 4.5/10
Gamerseurope:9.5/10
Gamingillustrated.com 96%
ferrago.com: 89%
PC Gamer: 92.0%
Computer Gaming World: 90.0%
The average customer review of RTW on Amazon is 4.5/5, despite, if I remember correctly, an attempt by a group of disgruntled fans to lower it by giving it 1 star because it wasnt realistic enough, or whatever.

Obviously, yes, you can say: 'yes but the poor reviewers were just dazzled by the pretty pictures, they gave it a score before they realised how awful it really is'

But obviously that's not true. Lots of pretty games get low scores because they play like crap.

People act like they were betrayed by CA. In fact we were spoiled by CA, they gave us a game that allows us to depict huge, beautiful battles across epic scenery and use (by and large) realistic tactics to win them. If CA had never done that what would we have? Same old RTS's?

People here moaning that MTW2 Will never be exactly what they really really really want is like the kid who wants a chocolate chip ice cream who cries when he only gets a honeycomb ice cream. It's petulant and silly.

Obviously CA owe us something, I paid £35 for Rome, after all. On the other hand, I would have gladly paid £35 for a game with half the scope of RTW. CA are visionaries, and it really annoys me when people bash them.