This game is definitely overhyped and overrated. The game plays like kingdom hearts. the story is okay, just okay. the media definitely overrated this game, its like they never played a video game in their life before, and this was the first game they ever played. this game is a rating of 8 or 7 at best.
Stick with Civilization 3 the game play is similar to Civ 4, nearly identical, and mostly importantly the attack animation of each unit is better than Civ4, especially the submarine attack animation which doesn't make sense at all in Civ4. The submarine and all the naval unit attack animation are the same, shouldn't there be a different variety of attack animation for different units? For example the destroyer unit has the same attack animation as the battleship, that doesn't make any sense! the destroy is not equipped with 4 giant guns throughout the ship, how can it have the animation of four giant guns firing? When submarines are attacking another submarine wouldn't it have made more sense to have the animation of shooting torpedoes at each other under the water, but no, instead they have bombs thrown out of the water from your submarine to the target (whether it be a ship or another submarine) as the animation. I dont even see how Civ4 can even be better than Civ3. Civ 4 cons: 3d graphics meh! attack animation all units very poorly done, very bad! its not an upgrade to civ3! How can the news media claim Civ4 is better than Civ 3? It's not! save your money get Civ3.
