Whatever they did to the game, it doesn't feel like any other Civ game i ever played, i'm not going to pretend i'm clever enough to analyse exactly why i dislike the game as Sulla did, i can't even say i agree with him as i don't really understand what he was saying, but i do know the following as a player:
1. I don't feel like i'm controlling a great nation when i play civ 5 which is what i want from a civ game, i feel like i'm playing a board-game against human players, which is not something i felt in my two other favourite civ's. 2 and 4, and not something i wanted, i hate multi-player, why did my single player have to become like that?
2. The diplomacy angers and infuriates me, it is full of dumb things like a leader hating you even though you save their capital city, it doesn't have decent depth, and it is the major part of my disatisfaction with the game, almost a year on it still hasn't been fixed despite what i see as many rushed and ill-thought out changes, yet the crummy DLC that adds nothing of importance but just more civs keeps rolling on.
3. I find City states to be generic and uninteresting.
4. There are no vassals, no spies, no sabotage, just war to deal with any problems your neighbours throw at you, trade is simplistic and uninteresting.
5. There are so many horribly contrived rules in the game, from indestructible capitals to only being able to build trade routes among your own cities, it all serves to keep reminding me that i'm not leading a great nation, just playing a badly designed board-game against opposition that doesn't even require tact to be dealt with, just the hammer of my army, diplomacy, that's the word i keep coming back to when playing this game, it truly sucks.
6. I don't get the sense of wonder and excitement i got from previous Civ games, again i think that has to do with the game so forcefully making me be a board-game player instead of allowing me to pretend the world is real, being relegated by the game from imagining i was a leader, to being a player on a team.
If i could describe the change i experienced from playing Civ 4 to playing Civ 5 in an abstract manner, i'd say it was like playing with and enjoying lego, and then one day finding that the pieces had been replaced with ones twice the size, had been cut in number and had less types of parts, for me less definitely didn't turn out to be more with this game.
I found myself completely unable to suspend my disbelief and pretend i was a leader of a great nation while playing, because the game kept reminding me at every opportunity that it's trying to be a boardgame, that didn't happen to me with the other civ games.
That's my feed-back one year on, i still regret having bought the game, i've bought games i wasn't happy with before and not been that bothered, the Civ series was a staple series to me for 15 years that i just loved playing, not any more, as far as i am concerned the only thing i want to know now is if civ 6 will be "carrying on the great work of 5" or if they will try a completely different approach, that should let me know if i have any interest left in the series at all.
Edit* almost forgot, the user interface, with so much important info missing, hidden behind a thousand mouseclicks or crammed all at the top of the screen in tiny writing, also sucks.
Double Edit* the high graphic requirements are pretty amazing considering how static the game world is, the units are also too small and hard to recognise without having icons above their heads enabled, i can't zoom in as much as i'd like to either, i guess zooming in closely was too much of a luxury.