I can say I love playing this game. I don't love everything about it, but I really enjoy my time playing it.

I played Civ V just as much as this, and I can honestly say I like VI better. That may be controversial, and I know many people (even those who like VI) don't share that feeling.

After reading many of the other reviews, most of the problems seem to boil down to either the privacy issues (which I will get to) and the fact that it's too different from V.

To be clear, it IS different from V. And, yes, I did have a tough time getting used to some of the changes. I even scoffed at some of them, saying "THAT'S how it works now, how ridiculous..." But, after clocking over 700 hours, I have to say that at least 80% of the things they added and changed were for the better and most of the remaining 20% was the same. I'm just going to rattle off a few examples:

Graphics don't make a game good or bad, unless they interfere with your ability to play it. I go back and forth between V and VI (because my MBP can't run VI) and I have real problems distinguishing different types of tiles and recourses in V. This was GREATLY improved in VI. Everything is distinct, instantly recognizable, and wonderfully colorful. The drab greens, browns, and tans of Civ V leave a lot to be desired nowadays. “Realistic" graphics have their place, but not in a game where you need to be able to distinguish between a lot of different types tiles. Civ VI fixes that. Plus I just really like the way things look, they are crisp, colorful, and interesting to look at, especially the wonders.

Culture is just better. While it was a novel functionality in V. I mostly forget about it in every game I play because it just isn't set up to be interacted with much. Culture is a huge part of how a real civilization grows. I am a little disappointed in how they designed the new culture, though. If I had designed the game, I wouldn't have just plain copied the science functionality. That doesn't make sense for culture, because culture is developed, it evolves, it is created from nothing into something. Science is discovered, it already exists, but must be found. Those sound like very distinct and separate systems to me. I would have made a lot more "branches" to the culture tree and would have made it so that if you choose one way to go with your culture, you are preeminently locked out of another way. For instance, your culture could favor (and thus assist) the development of science, or it could focus on religion, Not both, not in the real world.

The government functionality is cool. It is an interesting card design and it adds a lot of extra things to manage and control, which then leads to much more things to think about when making other choices. And IMHO, this game is to simulate being a person in charge of a lot of ♥♥♥♥. It’s basically escapism for people stuck below a management position in their career (like me).

Districts are great, I love that they take up a tile and that being next to each other allows for different combos and bonuses. It feels like you’re a city planner as well as all the other roles. In my mind, the more control, the better. Am I wrong? The wonders taking up whole tiles was perhaps a little much, but the way it’s implemented is balanced and still fun without removing anything from the functionality in V. I would have made them work more like roads. Where you could put them on tiles where stuff was, and it wouldn’t overwrite it (like farms or mines), but it would perhaps subtract some of the usefulness of whatever is there (for instance if it was a farm, the food would be cut in half or something), while adding its own bonuses.

One of the changes I didn't like was the new leader screens. They are crazy different from the rest of the game in terms of computer resource usage, which is pretty weird for a game this massive. I can run perfect 60fps for the entire game OUTSIDE the leader screens. But as soon as Montezuma shows up with all those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ feathers, it slows to a crawl. Some of them also look... just weird. It's subjective, sure. But Gandhi’s head looks like it could pop off at any moment and Teddy & Alexander look ridiculous in my taste.

Finally, privacy:
If you don't want Civ to have your data, don't give it to them. It sucks that more companies can't be more like Apple and not recognize the destructive power mass data collection can wrought, but it's ultimately up to the consumer to prevent the data from even being collected. Civ VI does not search your computer for your private information, it doesn't ask you for any to play the game, it just runs. If it is getting your data from steam, then that's a valve problem...

There’s a lot more stuff I’d like to talk about like trading, airports & harbors, dark/golden ages, DLC, etc. etc. But this review is too long already.

It’s a great game. I think one of the best I play. I will continue to play it, probably even when Civ VII comes out. I think it’s very unfairly reviewed on steam and other places.