Took MSG decades to finaly release their best AoE title by far.

Every civ is unique both in its design and gameplay. Lots of brilliant ideas to use the different aspects of the game in very specific ways depending on the civ you're playing.

The competitive scene is well alive and keeps the hype rolling. The community is healthy.
There's lots of challenges, achievements and such you can complete in multiple game mods. There's nothing utterly restrictive.

DLCs can be considered a bit costy, but they soon fall around 10€, sometimes less if you're waiting for discounts. And in any way it's far from being abusive prices we can see about so many other games these days.

Great game.