Imperator: Rome got off to a rough start.  Which is tragic, because I was a huge fan of its predecessor, Europa Universalis: Rome.  I thought it had a lot of potential as a franchise.  But I am very happy that Paradox has stuck with Imperator and today, it's a very different game from release and the upcoming 2.0 Marius patch looks set to catapult the game even further in the right direction.  If you skipped Imperator at release or were unenthusiastic with the game back then, it's definitely worth another shot in its current form and certainly once Marius comes out.