Yes, (over the top) hidden diplomacy was a fail, in my regards. I am fine with some mysterie, though. (As, for example, the possibility of being backstabbed, no matter how good your standing seams.).
But...
- 1 UpT was a great (and brave!) design decission.
- Hexes where a great design decission.
- Range combat was a great design decission.
- CSs where a great design decission.
- Limited strategic resources where a great design decission.
- UAs instead of Civ4 traits where a great design decission.
- Getting rid of all the dead weight of prior civ games and try a new start was a great and brave (!) design decission.
Sure, not everything went well, at the beginning. But rebalancing and tweaking is something that will happen in nearly every game, nowadays. (And this is good, as a big fanbase can give way more feedback than a small testing team.)
And sure, not everything went to my taste. Lowered field yields for bonus resources, for example.
This is, in my thinking, a consequence of the effort to make CiV more of a multiplayer game. An effort, that was one of the biggest fails (in my regard! Please be aware, that this statement is totally subjective! And yes, I know that Sulla blamed it to other things. But even if Sulla seams to be considered as a Civ-genius, I am sure he is *wrong* in this regard!)
All things considered, I think the original dev team (including Shaffer!) did a good job! They created a solid base to build up uppon. A base, that - after several patches - delivered a fun to play game. (AI deficites aside, which are a different issue.)
And one thing is true: If you take new and seldomly walked pathes, you will anger some people.
But I think, they don't deserve all this hatred and bashing at all!
Cheers,
Deggial