It's not. Combat will be a lot more interesting in this game, no doubt about it.Because you can never make a bad decision, only a less good decision. In earlier games, you were often forced to change back and forth. This option will technically still be there, but very few people will actually fill out two tree that cannot be activated at the same time. So basicly, once you pick the upgrade, you won't have to worry about the policies until you get another upgrade.
In earlier versions of the game, you could always switch back, and you were always going to unlock all of the possibilities eventually. Now you have a limited number of number of choices over time, and you decide how many there are going to be by deciding how many resources you are going to divert into culture, and how many cities your empire will have. To me, this sounds a lot more complex. Social policies are basically like the tech tree. Of course, all techs are useful, but if you choose the wrong focus, or if you can't keep up with the neighbors, you're out of the game.
I don't know exactly how much the the trade routes will yield in this game, but let's say that you build six road tiles to connect two cities. The trade route may just cover that expense... But other than that, the roads only makes your units go faster. The point is, if you don't want to go to war, there will be no point of building roads.
Though I applaud the fact that they now cost money, I can't see why the removed the resource connecting ability. I hated when the barbarians destroyed the road that lead to my only iron mine, but that was still a very tactical part of the game.
Well, maybe you'll want to be able to defend yourself with a small amount of units. And if roads initially lose money, they become a skill test: Instead of blindly using roads like before, you will now have to know when roads become profitable. And if you don't place them right, you'll make them too long which costs you money. Some players wouldn't care about a handful of gold per turn, because they won't buy tiles anyway, but I thought such decisions would suit your style.
Also, now that you won't have roads to your resources, how will you protect them from the barbarians in time?
[cultural expansion]It's simplied because the AI makes decisions for you. Though there's an option to buy tiles manually, it's not very likely that you will afford to use that option a lot, at least not in the beginning of the game.
Simplified? It used to be so trivial that anyone knew when and how much the borders would pop. Now the majority of players will see exactly one new tile, while only the advanced players could predict several tiles in advance, and change the city's focus (while, at the same time, locking the tiles worked by citizens) in order to change the direction of automatic expansion. Dumbed down?
Also, you claim that the option to buy is so expensive that you can never exercise it? This depends, of course on how much you focus on gold, but it strictly gives the player more control, and adds more complexity. And if you find but four city states first, you'll have enough money to buy your first tile. Would you? Or would you rather spend the gold on something else?
The question is, what should you build instead? You have a limited amount of units and you will need less workers. So basically, your only option will be to construct buildings.
Which buildings? Or should you build buildings at all, which cost money? But fortunately, Civ5 is so dumbed down that even on high levels it doesn't matter which buildings to build since you'll win even with an inferior strategy, right? Good luck in your first deity game, and don't say you haven't been warned.
for a plethora of reasons, starting with the fact they don't want to lose (read scare away) the revolutions crowd. This killed the SimCity franchise in the end, lets see how they fare with such approach. 
