Comment Not as rich as IV but will probably get there... (Score 1) 399
I like your review and agree with your score for how the game is right now. When compared to Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword there's a lot of "richness" (for lack of a better word) that's lacking. BTS has an incredible amount of variety that is really appreciated in this kind of game. It also has the benefit of years of patches and expansions, so it's largely stable and well balanced. Like most new PC games Civ V suffers from bugs, and "duh, stupid" decisions like putting the quick load and quick save buttons on the keyboard right next to each other. They have introduced many new game mechanics in Civ V some of which need further fine-tuning. They also left out some things I'm confident will be added in future expansions.
Games like Civilization are really like platforms. They grow and mature with time as players work through the issues and the developers respond. So for that reason I'm very happy and excited about Civ V. As the start of a gaming platform it has tremendous potential, and will (I hope) continue to grow and improve. It's already a lot of fun in it's current state, but once the "richness" returns and the modding community gets going, it will get even better. I think the future of Civ V is very bright indeed.