That's bull, and no matter now many times you repeat it, it remains bull. The vast majority of complaints, like the OP, are that the game is boring. It's rote, it's too easy, there are too few choices, there is nothing to do, the AI is abominably stupid.
Just to take one example at random, I never liked the implementation of trading and negotiation in Civ IV. Instead of fixing the problems and the exploits in Civ III they dumbed it down, eliminating a whole host of possibilities and making it less realistic at the same time.
When I saw that Civ V had returned to Civ III and allowed many different things to be traded, I was enthusiastic. When I discovered that the AI was far stupider at trading these things than it was in Civ III, my enthusiasm quickly turned to disgust. In peace negotiations the AI seems to have only two positions. Either it wants your first-born son (and usually the rest of your children too) or it's willing to give them away. And the changes that lead it to move from the one position to the other seem to be remarkably small.
Another thing that pisses me about this game is that the patches seem to all be about removing the few stratagems left to the player. The first patch eliminated luxury selling. While I agree that was exploitive, the effect was to remove about the only part of diplomacy which had the slightest interest. It would seem that they intend to nerf ICS in the second patch, eliminating yet more options for the player. Instead they should have introduced ways to make big cities more attractive, starting by fixing the absurd city growth rule.
People like that will always find things to complain about.
