Surprising to read so much hate on Civ 5. I never played the earlier ones, so I guess it makes sense old fans would be upset with change.
I resonate with many of the critiques, esp easy to master military conflict, poor pacing, and an inevitably boring end game. I never beat deity cause it was too annoying to strive against shitty AI with crazy resource advantages.
That said, I played the hell out of 5 vanilla. It had been out about a year at that point,so I didn't have as many bugs as ppl at launch. Eventually I broke down, came back to the game a couple years later, bought the xpacs, and had a great experience all over again.
Civ 5 delivered beyond what I can ask in terms of entertainment for monetary investment. While I probably won't pre order 6, cause I ain't bout that, I am certainly intending on building a new gaming pc late this year and it will be one of the first titles I play.
Ps- gfx seem fine to me. But I love ASCII roguelikes, classic EQ, and am probably. One of the least gfx fixated gamers I know. Maybe it's something to do with having chronically underperfoming PC setups.
I'll be buying the game before any xpacs because I want the studio to be rewarded and encouraged to expand on what will hopefully be a very good game with plenty of potential playtime.
Tldr I like civ 5 a lot, hopeful for 6.