I highly recommend AoE2:DE.

It's the Age of Kings you remember, but with more. The civs added on after Conquerors are awesome.
Singleplayer campaings are mostly good, some are bad (Tariq) while others I found amazing (Le Loi). (It's hard for me to compate them with the original AoK & AoC campaings due to nostalgia)

It looks the way you *thought* AoE2 looked like 20yrs ago.
Performence has gone up since release, it's good and getting better.

Gameplay wise there are very few bugs if any.

I highly recommend AoE2:DE. It's the Age of Kings you remember, but with more. The civs added on after Conquerors are awesome. Singleplayer campaings are mostly good, some are bad (Tariq) while others I found amazing (Le Loi). (It's hard for me to compate them with the original AoK & AoC campaings due to nostalgia) It looks the way you *thought* AoE2 looked like 20yrs ago. Performence has gone up since release, it's good and getting better. Gameplay wise there are very few bugs if any.