I personally love it.
I haven't played Civ 7, but I have played every other game in the series, as well as the spin-offs, extensively. I also have a bit less than 200 hours in Humankind, which had some parts I liked, some I didn't, and overall didn't quite grab me.
1. It is a very good game in my opinion. Similar to Civ, yet different. There are city builder aspects, and a lot of focus is on setting up and managing production chains based on the resources you find on the map. The amount of micro has been improved significantly since launch, but it is still a lot as the game advances. It is odd, as I am not a fan of excessive micro myself, but I am better able to tolerate the micro in Ara than in many other games. Perhaps it's because most of it feels meaningful. Like, I'm going around tweaking things, but it's for a clear purpose, such as being able to produce enough Fine Clothes or Indoor Stoves to supply my cities. I think there is still a lot of room for UI refinement and automation and/or streamlining of some tasks, but it is moving in the right direction. If you hate the idea of tweaking your economy in this way though, it may not be for you.
2. Yes, you can upgrade your units now. This was a major complaint at launch, and it was fixed a good while ago. You can only upgrade deployed forces though, not the ones in your reserve. I suspect this may get changed too at some point.
I think Ara has a lot going for it, and doesn't get nearly enough praise for its innovative and interesting features. Like how maps are generated, for example. Instead of uniform tiles, Ara has irregularly shaped regions that follow natural boundaries, and have a variable number of zones within them. Improvements are placed in zones, filling them out organically. Then there's the turn system, where all players do their turns simultaneously, and turns are then resolved simultaneously when you hit end turn. Then there's the sheer number of players you can have: 36. Then there's the fact that you can zoom way in and rotate your camera freely, watching your citizens go about their lives like in a city builder game. Another interesting approach is that there is a concept of a reserve. Forces you produce are initially put in your reserve, and need to be deployed to formations (unlocked by tech) before use. On launch units could not be upgraded, and formations were permanent, but both these issues have been fixed. You can now upgrade units, and you can put them back in your reserve.
Compared to Civ, Ara is similar in concept, but plays quite differently, with the biggest focus being managing the economy. I would suggest approaching it with an open mind, and also checking out some gameplay videos to see if it might be for you. With regards to reviews, Ara has improved a lot since launch, with notable improvements being reductions in micro, better UI, and smaller regions making every map size effectively twice as large. Recent reviews are at 75% positive, all time reviews at 68%...which is right below the threshold for "Mostly Positive".
