I have about 60 hours into this game, and I am having a great time with it, despite some of the annoying aspects of the interface.
I'm currently in my 70s, and have played every Civilization game since Civ II. I therefore came to Civilization 7 expecting it to be significantly different from Civilization 6 (because every new Civ game has been very different from the previous one). I have never been a "power player"--I think the only Deity-level games I've won have been by accident, and there were maybe two of them. So this is a summary for those sorts of players.
Civilization 7 is complicated in a way that I particularly like. Mixing and matching leader abilities, civilization abilities, and mementos and figuring out the "best" pairings for my play style is fun, especially with so many of them. Changing my play style to get to the end of an Age more or less intact is another thing I love about this game. I also really like the way the leaders develop differently--and have to be played differently--depending on what attributes they earn during a particular game. I expect to get a lot of years of enjoyment out of this.
I am a bit unhappy about the forced ending of the three ages--being able to keep on going for "just one more turn" is one of the things I've enjoyed in other Civ games, and I'm disappointed that it wasn't included in this one. What I'd really like is a "player's choice" button, where you could keep playing whatever age you were without moving on ever, or continue to move from Antiquity to Exploration to Modern as per the current design. I haven't made it to the end of the Modern age yet, so I don't know if they still have Giant Death Robots, but I kind of hope so...
Some aspects of the user interface are mildly annoying, and I'm still figuring out where some of the information I want is hidden. I consider these mild annoyances and part of learning the new game, but I can see that they would really bother players who prefer a more intense gaming style.
And yes, I will probably buy the DLC when it starts coming out.

My first impression is generally positive as the new mechanics make for a fresh experience. However, whoever designed the UI deserves to be tried in The Hague.

I have close to 100 hours in civilization 7 so I think it time I deliver my review. Now to start this off I am having fun with this game obviously. However I 100% understand the concerns of the people who are upset. I think this game came out too early. It needs at least 2-3 more months of polish and QoL fixes.But when I see why the game is released the way it is, I will not blame the devs. I honestly think they care about this game and really they did put their heart into it. The different culture units are nice, the animations are great, the music is good, etc etc. I think we all know what the problem here is and it’s the publisher 2K.

So I am going to get right to it and just be upfront and talk about the fun topic. I'm talking to you 2K in part 1, 2, 4, and 6. You want to fix this review mess and want to restore the faith that so many people lost with this product? Here is what you have got to do and you're not going to like it. But trust me when I say you will see more profit with a happy player base then an upset player base.

Other than fixing the UI issues and some QoL stuff we are missing like more maps, auto explore, one more turn, etc, and etc.

1. Release Crossroads of the World Collection and Right to Rule Collection for free for all owners of the game as FLC in an update.

2 Add some very important leaders that we are missing as FLC. Gandhi and Genghis Khan come to mind for this.

3. Add the ability to remain the same civ each era. This is not an easy fix as so many assume it is. It can be done but I believe it is going to take the devs some time to find a proper solution to please mostly everyone that has an issue with this. I don’t think adding a legacy mode where you only get your civ bonus in a certain era is the answer though.

4.For people that brought the deluxe and founders edition give them the Oct DLC for free. I am assuming we are getting the 4th era the “Atomic Era” around that time.

5. Clean up the era transition a bit with some QoL and some additional options for players that can enable or disable wars ending and armies teleporting and disbanding if you don't have room for them all when you get to a new era.

6. DO NOT, and I repeat DO NOT, release leader and civ bundle with a $30 price tag. With 2 leaders, 4 civs, and 4 natural wonders at most I and I am sure many others are willing to spend is $10-$15 max. Don’t make those dlc worth almost half the price of the base game.

If 2K and the Devs did all that then I am almost 100% sure most of you reading this would be happy. Clearly not everyone will be, but we don’t live in a world where you can please everyone.

Now for the Devs a few more things of note.

1. Please add some more voice lines for the leaders. Hearing them mumble and grr when I interact with them is very off. I want to hear when England is back about me being “interested in a trade agreement with England.”. Don’t kill the meme pls.

2. I talk a little bit about the era system above but I do think we need a grace period once the era hits 100%. Like 5 or 15 more turns. Maybe make it a setting too?

3. I know not many have mentioned this yet but I strongly feel ageless buildings that have an improved version of itself in the next era should just be built over the weaker version of said building if you have it already built in said city. There is one reason I want this and it is because towards the end game I have so many tiles in my cities that are urban and barely any rural tiles (unless I have a lot of water tiles), but a lot of these ageless building buff rural tiles. It is a strange design choice to me.

4. Religion needs some more work. It feels off. We can only get a pantheon and use said pantheon in the first era, then we get to the second era and unlock religion, which we then lose when we get to the third era. Need work.

5. There might need to be some general adjustments to how fast players score era points. Some of the exploration era games are ending in turn 56-57 which is just a bit fast. Though I notice the issue in the modern age too.

6. I would like the option to have a custom difficulty mode that I can hand pick what bonus the AI gets. I don’t really like personally giving the AI units bonus damage for example.

7. Rework the settling to close to a capital relationship modifier. Really it strange at times. I had a game where my second city was like 5 hexes away from my capital and all the AI had this opinion modifier….like what? Just rework it slightly.

8. I would like to see razing not add war support to all my current wars and future wars in that current era. Instead give the player that I am razing the city some war support for our current war.

I am done now. Ill give this a yes for recommendation but should be in the middle of yes and no. Just consider some of the things I mentioned 2K.

EDIT: Wish I could change my review to negative due to the awful job at addressing key issues and the treatment Unique Units are getting.

Jeez. This is a tough one. I see a lot of negative reviews and to be honest most of them seem really fair in their critique, specially regarding the UI, the exorbitant price and how much of a step back when it comes to QoL this is from precursor games like Civilization 5 and 6. However, ignoring this giant, stinky pink elephant in the room, we can move on into what is a really great game. It is very fun so far.

Also shoutout to the talented compossers Geoff Knorr and Roland Rizz-O.

Just in case, let me be clear on this:


The reason for this statement is because the game moves away from long standing formulae that have been around for a while. I'm sure there is a myriad things to consider but the changes that I've noticed the most on my current playthrough and limited playtime are as follows:

• There is no workers.
  
• You cannot make use of unworked tile yields, even if these are inside your borders. You need to improve the tile first.
• Improving tiles will cause culture bombs on tiles adjacent to the one which was just improved. Culture output no longer has an effect on increasing borders.
  
• Game feels much slower, which may or may not be a good thing. A lot of people I know enjoy playing on marathon speed.
  
• Combat is a lot different now that units are no longer promoted. Instead, the Army Commander unit gets all experience and promotions.
  
• Settlements need to be upgraded to cities before you can have more control over their development. Before that, they start off as towns, which can only benefit from gold expenditure.
  
• City States are not permanent. They change after every age, so you have to integrate them into your empire or make the most out of them and their bonuses, which come in several kinds: buildings or bonuses. They also don't expand as much as they used to so they very weak and vulnerable.
  
• No barbarians. Barbarian encampments are gone and now the whole mechanic is integrated into the city states, which all start out as hostile. You have to spend influence to ally yourself with them, similar to how barbarian clans mode worked in Civ6.
  
• You can no longer capture settlers or get rid of opponent's civil units like missionaries somehow, which is a bummer. Sometimes you get a ton of missionaries coming to your cities with limited ways to defend your cities from the foreign religions.
  
• Resources have unique effects depending on the age you are in and you can allocate them into your cities and towns, this makes collecting them be a lot more important and fun.
  
• There is no Great People. At least not in the way it used work in Civ5 or 6. You are not racing towards getting them for their unique bonuses. Instead, every Civ has a unique GP unit.
  
• AI is actually quite competent!
  etc, etc, etc...

Basically, the game just plays a lot more different than Civ 5 and 6 put together. This may be a turn off for a lot of people, specially the fact that now you need to select a Civ Leader on top of the civilization itself, which changes as ages progress through the game. Changes like these are always very polarizing for the community; like the design choices made in Civilization 6 and the introduction of districts. Nevertheless, this is a great opportunity for the series as all these changes are a joy and a breath of fresh air.

What I've enjoyed the most so far is how much more dynamic each age feels. It's less about clicking next turn waiting for the cool stuff to happen or your buildings to finish being done. Instead, you are actively planning, working towards a goal or waging war/defending yourself. I feel much more involved in the game, as odd as it sounds. For example, the addition of influence as a resource you can spend in several actions gives diplomacy a turn for the better because it gives you a lot more flexibility on how you want to play around with your opponents or allies. Combat is a lot more interesting with the changes to terrain elevation and the addition of commanders. Also, speaking of armies, thanks to the addition of ages and how these work there is no longer the issue where you could have an army of swordsmen fighting a tank crew, which was something I absolutely hated on the previous entries before Rise & Fall kind of addressed this in a lowkey manner.

Another aspect I have enjoyed a lot is how the challenges for every age feel quite distinct and rewarding, not only because they push you towards a victory condition but your efforts are rewarded in other ways, like the attribute points you can use to customize your leader. Your Leader keeps on evolving, just like your civilization. It's no longer boring once you are past the age where your Civ unique unit is relevant. No. You are ALWAYS relevant in a direct and fun way.



I'll start off by writing this: There is many QoL aspects that should be added at some point...

• No strategic, bird's-eye view map. Very often I find myself scrolling the mouse wheel more, wishing I could zoom out further.
  
• Religion feels quite barebones compared to Civ6. The bonuses you get out of it jsut aren't too amazing.
  
• The most awful of things I've encountered so far is how you will never get a notification when any of your soldiers or units is attacked in the map, lol. You only get a notification when they are dead. Which is hilariously bad.
  
• Getting into the diplomacy screen, specially for city-states/independent people is a chore and sometimes impossible. Good luck locating those independent states on the map.
  
• Which brings me to the next point: The visibility in the game is a mess... It takes so much more effort to get the information you need in the game. Where is this army from? Where are they? Can I talk to them? Etcétera.
  
• The icons of units are incredibly small so you often will see enemy missionaries and other units easily sneaking into your territory because, again, there is no notification whatsoever or visual aid to help you locate the threats.
  
• Quotes are quite bad and not impactful at all... plus volume is low and the same quotes are recycled whenever you research a mastery of a tech... lol. Basically the amazing voice actress for the narrator is wasted potential.
  
• The old diplomacy screens with other leaders have been replaced and while they look better, they are less immersive because the leaders only do body gestures and barely talk at times which is definitely a downgrade compared to previous games...

Despite all this, the game itself is amazing and I'd ask people to give it a chance... when it's ready. Right now it's "okay", but not great at all in it's current state. It has a ton of potential because the inner workings of it are fun and interesting. So much that it could be my new favorite Civilization game (I've been playing since Civ3) but all that potential is buried under a lot of annoyances that are difficult to ignore if anything, because they are constantly shoved into your face.

If you are like me and can tolerate the shortcomings because you find the game as fun as I do, I applaud your patience (and wallet). If not, we should hope that these issues are ironed out soon, specially considering the price tag.



Game is good. Mechanics are fun and definitely a step forward in the right direction. UI needs rework. Need more QoL stuff. Some features are barebones. MUSIC IS AMAZING.

I have as much faith in this game as a Lavra district surrounded by mountain. :v

Narrator is cool and all but Civ5 had best narrator and quotes. Fight me.

So hey, I've made a couple runs by this time, and currently forcing myself through Deity.

The good: Graphics, no more workers, less micromanagement, commanders are fun, age switching is fun, stacking bonuses and strategizing legacies to make a modern age build is fun. City management is better than before, army management is pretty much the same, religion is better, game forcing you to go for "distant lands" in exploration is not bad, but can be frustrating.

The bad: Oh, god. No auto-explore, narrator barely having any lines, UI not being informative (the design is meh, but not as horrendous as most reviewers tell you), some of the songs are abysmally frustrating with no option to change or fast-forward them, no option to speed up unit animations (try to play military with 6 bomber stack, one animation takes a minute, not kidding), AI being from a special needs class even on Deity, not even using their sanctions, both politically and militarily. Crisises are a good direction, but are not equal in strength. Age change is sudden (sometimes it's after 80 turn, sometimes 120+), certain legacies are WAY harder to do than others (treasure fleet being the main offender), and I feel like game is missing a fourth age.

The "I don't know" - economy and diplomacy are unfathomably OP. The map generation is alright, but no fun (2 continents and 2 lines of island, or if you get archipelago you get 1 continent and 3 semi-continents, which is better. I didn't test Shuffle yet). The meta progression is okay-ish, until you figure out that to get the best mementos you gotta play some of the worst leaders in the game gameplay-wise. Lategame units are pretty generic, with aviation being overpowered to the point of no return right now. Abusing diplomacy/influence stack feels absolutely gamebreaking (getting all the "you get free tech/culture per ind. state owned" pretty much is "I win" button).

So, why do I recommend it? Because despite all the frustrations I did have fun. It's okay to wait a bit (a year maybe) for them to polish most of the frustrating stuff, but in its core the game is fun, for me at least.

After 6 hours, I am very fond of civ 7. The graphics, soundtrack, and new gameplay mechanics hooked me quickly.
PROS:
-The graphics and soundtracks, as well as the narrator are 10/10.
-Age transitions along with the 2 attributes you can equip to your leader will enable numerous different build paths. If you are concerned about immersion- i'm sure a quick community mod will fix that. As someone who was worried about that, it wasn't an issue for me.
-Naval gameplay was refreshed and is very fun. Navigable rivers open up continent interiors to the sea for trade, exploration, and reaching the entire map.
-Combat in general has been refreshed, and requires more elaborate planning. The AI is also more competent at flanking, focus firing, and conquering your districts and city.
-The diplomacy system is new, and the AI isn't an exploitable moron like in civ 6 in that regard.

CONS:
-The UI needs to be patched ASAP. It looks like it was made for console, and even then it just looks bad. I am still not sure if there is a screen showing all of the trade that merchants linked. it's unclear and doesn't match the nice game visuals at all.
-The game needs more map types, more explanation in menus, and more than 4 human players in multiplayer.
-Quality of life features like quick restart aren't there yet. If you have to re-roll, you need to recreate the game from scratch.
-Modding will be enabled soon, didn't come at launch

TL;DR: Game's got really great bones, but QoL with it is really really bad. Buy on sale or wait until they have fixed some of the on-release nonsense unless you're used to playing beta titles. The problems are fixable but the fundamentals are enough to make it worth a play if you find it at a good cost or wait for some of this stuff to get resolved.

I've spent most of my available time playing this game since it came out. That should probably say a lot - for all the bellyaching people are doing, the game is enjoyable enough to keep and hold my attention.

That having been said, the game is janky and feels like it was pushed out the door before it was ready. Let's do that classic steam review format; there will be fewer in the good column than the bad one, but the good column items are more interesting and fundamental to me than those in the bad column. I think a lot of the bad stuff is very fixable and superficial, but the core of this game is solid IMO. Here we go:


THE GOOD STUFF:

- REFRESHING TAKE ON ERAS:
Dividing the game formally into three different and distinct ages is, in my opinion, a great idea in terms of gameplay and balance. Changing up the goals of the civs mid-game and shuffling all the civs forward to the current age of tech offers players who are behind the curve an opportunity to remain competitive, which also results in a more interesting challenge for players in the late game who may have run away with the game. The AI won't win if you've snowballed, but they will put up a better fight than a renaissance era musketman trying to defend against your modern tanks at the endgame. Likewise, if you're playing heavy science and low culture or vice versa, you're not going to end up suffering as bad in the late game if you fall behind in the tech/civic trees.

- LEADER, MEMENTOS, CIV:
I really like this system. You can really play with your basic approach to gameplay and enter your game with a plan about how you're going to make use of your civ, leader, and mementos to get an edge over the opponents. Leader/memento options let you optimize for the course of your game, and civ options let you select and optimize a strategy for the specific era. This enhances the uniqueness of each run and makes the game a lot more replayable.

- COMMANDER SYSTEM IS GREAT:
I feel like they've hit a good sweet spot between the old stacks of death and carpets of death from prior games. You can stack your units in a leader and then deploy them, the combat feels tactical in meaningful ways while not requiring a ton of micromanaging to get your armies from place to place. You're not tracking the upgrades of individual units either - you track the purposes and capabilities of your armies, and if you're skilled you'll have plans for what each commander specializes in and you will build them up accordingly. There are some aspects of this system that suffer from the UI problems I'm about to discuss but this system is basically great and I am personally very pleased.

- OVERALL:
I feel like the designers really wanted to take away a lot of the repetition of micromanagement and make the game more replayable. I think they've achieved this. You're not moving around civilians, you're not moving around builders, civilization maintenance isn't as dull as it used to be, and different runs can be made to feel pretty much totally unique using the options I've described above. This is why I give this one a thumbs-up despite it's obvious flaws (we'll discuss them! patience!)


NEUTRAL COMMENTARY:

- CITIES VS. TOWNS SYSTEM:
This one's a shrug from me. I think there's a lot of gameplay optimizing to do here, but towns basically exist to make it so you can have a settlement that snatches up resources, produces units, and grows for awhile (or forever) without you needing to micromanage it. That's fine and I see the vision, but the system doesn't blow my mind. I still feel like I'm micromanaging the city growth to some degree, and for god's sake stop spamming me with the "TOWN SPECIALIZATION AVAILABLE" button! I knew it was available last turn, and the turn before, and the turn before... This might grow on me but in the degree that it's an improvement over older games, it isn't such a massive improvement that it fundamentally changes the feel of the game all that much.


THE BAD STUFF:

- INSUFFICIENT, JANKY UI:
The UI lacks sufficient information, is often outright misleading and buggy. There are two basic issues here: The design of the UI is either bad or incomplete, and the UI code appears to also simply be buggy. This portion of the game system was clearly not given enough attention as it deserved - there are a lot of ways that, of this feature in particular, the design is both less feature-rich in terms of even the most basic QoL, and far buggier on launch, than in prior titles. This is far and away the most frustrating thing about gameplay IMO.

- POOR TUTORIALIZATION:
The tutorial hints are so overly plentiful that a somewhat-experienced civ player will quickly turn them off - and then a crisis will hit and the player will have no idea what's going on or how to navigate the issues that are rapidly destroying their civilization. The era victory conditions just have to be kept in your head - you select an advisor and then that's the only type of reminder you get for the duration of the game, and those reminders are not very germane to the victory conditions anyway. In general, the game does a poor job of expressing its systems to the user.

- BUGS:
There are a lot of bugs that range from annoying (e.g. units appearing in the wrong place on the map) to outright computer freezes requiring a reboot on my high-end system. These bugs are basically everywhere - the game needs a lot of attention.

- LET ME DELETE AND MOVE BUILDINGS AND/OR UNDO BUILD ACTIONS:
Just do it, c'mon. It's so irritating when I misclick and my unique buildings end up in two different tiles and I can't do anything about it but reload a prior save, and now I can't get the benefits of the special district in my capital city and therefore potentially not access my special unit there.

- ANTICLIMACTIC VICTORIES:
Some of the victory conditions don't really feel all that exciting; The final era should drag on for long enough for someone to reach a formal victory, or at least there should be an option for it to do so - and the AI should do a little bit more to resist the win. This gripe obviously extends to older civ games but this game has definitely not fixed this pattern.

- INCOMPLETE GAME OPTIONS:
Older civ games had more options for maps, for map sizes, etc. - Civ 7 lacks these.

- SOME CONCERN OF MONEY GRABS:
The design of this game feels pretty monetizable - selling leader reskins and new civs; they've always done stuff like this, but the design raises my hackles a little. I hope they don't get too gross with this but if you're particularly alert to this, you probably will also be grossed out.

It's good. The pros of this game outweigh the cons. The UI is abysmal and seems to be designed by grey aliens or some other soulless being. I'm assuming they're gonna change it at some point its that bad. They also locked Napoleon behind making a 2K account so they can harvest and sell your data. All that said, the game itself is extremely fun and the new features are for the better fun-wise comparatively speaking.

Edit: Guys days later this game ♥♥♥♥♥ so hard. Its so fun.

I think a lot of complaints about UI are valid, but the new mechanics are a lot of fun. A lot of it makes sense and I can see what they're doing with it. I'm excited to keep playing and look forward to UI updates.

Update after 14 hours:
I have now tried a few saves in a few different settings and key points I enjoy are:
-Age Transition. I didn't think i would like it- but transitioning from Rome to Normans with castles and Knights felt natural and thematic
-Commanders. These guys are great. They make war feel a lot more intuitive. I love unloading them in a defensive line at a city gates.
-Diplomacy. The new system of making Diplomacy a currency really helps with the strategy of deciding where you want to spend your points. On friends, foes or maybe even city states.
-Graphics. I like the detail on the new units. The clouds floating above the map are a nice touch,
-Music. Great soundtrack. Brings you into the vibe of Civ.
-New Civ Trees. The Civ trees that are unique to each civ are a nice touch. I like this. It makes it feel like civ choice is more impactful.

I am now running on Linux Native and it seems to be a bit smoother than via proton. My saves moved over easily.

Original review:
This reminds me of Civ 5. It abandons many systems from 6 I did not care for such as loyalty and governors.

The addition of Commanders makes forming , maintaining and moving armies nicer than it ever has been.
The graphics and animations of the leaders are a step up from 6.
The new soundtrack is very good.

I just finished my first war and wiped out another Civ. The happiness mechanics from 5 make a return and now my Civ is rioting. Peak Civ.

I am running this on Linux under Proton (not native) and it runs very smoothly and has not crashed for me once.