MY PRE RELEASE REVIEW:
Hello there, I've been playing Civilization for about 15 years so this review will be from a veteran player's point of view.

For the past years I've only been playing Civ V because I simply disliked Civ VI for a lot of things. (Mostly the artstyle...)
So coming into Civ VII does feel like a fresh breath of air. It's like they took the artstyle of Civ V and made it better and added a whole bunch of new game mechanics around it. The tiles ingame look gorgeous, I really love the colours and the way they look. On the other hand I think that country borders and city names look kinda outdated. I can't pinpoint what it exactly is but it just feels like it could use a more modern design and in my opinion they should've used more vibrant colours.

The whole user interface when you speak to another leader I honestly find to be atrocious. It looks so cheap and could have been done so much better. In Civ V every leader had their own personal background related to their culture with music etc and it made it genuinely feel like you were peeking into their empire which I LOVED. It's like you came to their empire as a guest to offer them something. Now the leaders just stand there awkwardly like some kind of puppet. I hate the fact that I can't trade and choose what I want to trade. I do like the new influence system and I think it could add a lot of depth, I just feel like right now it also takes away a lot of the things we could do like creating our own trades.

I think the game still needs a *lot* of work and balancing because I steamrolled my oponents within 2 ages and took over the world which doesn't exactly seem right. I also really don't like that I can't construct roads for my units to move faster. Hopefully they will continue to improve the game in the near future. I think the current price is VERY steep for what is actually being delivered.

With all of this being said, I still had a positive experience actually playing the game, and it reignited my old love for Civ and I think that is what mattered the most. Would I recommend the game in the current state for the current price? Probably not. Would I recommend the game in general? Yes I would.