Can anyone here dispute those reasons?
I'm not familiar with this Tom Chick dude but just by reading his two reviews, it doesn't seem like he actually has much experience playing the game with the recent expansion...I find that the people who bash on Civ V conveniently turn a blind eye to the flaws of Civ IV...really, at its heart, the majority of criticism for Civ V has little to do with it's intrinsic quality, and more to do with the fact that it isn't exactly like Civ IV...and thank god, because Civ IV had fundamental flaws that Civ V rectified...
I'm not going to go into how much better I think Civ V is than its predecessor, because people either out of ignorance or sentiment are set in their opinion one way or the other, and arguing about it isn't going to change anyone's mind...
Admittedely, Civ V has a weak AI and diplomacy, but one must remember that Civ V is also much more complex and difficult...quite simply, it's easier to program an AI to do well in Civ IV than it is in Civ V...
I do however want to contend this baseless bashing of Gods and Kings...it seems that most of its criticism comes from the same people who don't like Civ V and probably have very little experience with the game (and even less experience with the expansion)...for those of you who like Civ V but are on the fence with the expansion, here is a list of many things included that conveniently get overlooked by "critics"...
- InstaHeal promotion now only gives +50% HP instead of bringing a unit up to 100% HP...
- Ranged units (archers, crossbowmen, etc) now completely upgrade into the modern eras with gatling guns and machine guns
- Unit progression is much smoother...for example, there is now a composite bowmen between archer and crossbowmen, and a "Great War" infantry between rifleman and modern infantry
- The re-worked tech tree now prevents some eras (like the Classical) from being "breezed through"...progression through the eras is in general much better...
- The addition/re-work of wonders is more balanced...for example, you no longer have the Hagia Sophia giving you a free great person so early in the game (and at the same time most people get a free GP from completely the liberty policy track)...there are arguably exceptions but I think it is better now than it was in vanilla
- Policy tracks are much better balanced...tradition is a little bit stronger, priming you for a better mid-game...you no longer can get a free settler from liberty with just 1 policy (now need 2)...piety is no longer as OP, primarily because it doesn't give you oodles of happiness (though you can get comparable amounts with the proper selection of religious beliefs)...rationalism and commerce are in general better, with commerce actually being useful and rationalism now being more reasonable in what the earliest policies give you...freedom now comes at the industrial era...there are a bunch of small changes but in general most are for the better...
- The change from a base 10 HP to a base 100 HP reduces the Civ V "ballparking" that made combat so risky as there is now a narrower variability from the predicted battle outcome...additionally, units take more hits to kill, preventing silly stupid circumstances that guarantee losses of units...
- The introduction of melee naval units is definitely a huge improvement to naval warfare...
- Contrary to stated reviews, faith and religion are actually quite useful throughout the entire game...religion can be essential to happiness if you have a bloated empire, and faith can be used to purchase great people (and possible military units)...religion definitely is useful throughout the entire game, it's just more useful early game...this honestly isn't any different from social policies, of which some are most useful early game while others are most useful late game...I would actually argue religion is more relevant to Civ V's late game than it was to Civ IV's late game...
- Because of espionage and new CS missions, gold isn't as crucial to CS alliances as it was before...it's still very important but the situation isn't as bad...
- Espionage prevents a tech leader from breaking away from everyone too easily...this makes lower difficulty levels harder (AI will steal your tech) and higher difficulty levels easier (you can steal tech from the AI)...I personally like this though I can see why some might not so I'd consider it more a change than an improvement...
- New resources were added including citris, crabs, copper, salt, etc...IIRC they are all new luxury resources...
- One thing about religion in Civ V that is actually better than Civ IV is the abilty to deliberately and purposefully remove religions from a city...
- The added civilizations have some very unique advantages...I find that the unique abilties from Civ V are far more interesting than the "Pick 2" trait system of Civ IV...
- A late game building, the recycling center, gives your Civ 2 copies of aluminum (max of 5 recycling centers)...this makes the late game much more fair and much less "whoever has aluminum and uranium wins"...
- You can now pay to "improve" a resource tile owned by a city state...this way you don't have to wait indefinitely for them to connect resources...
- No more culture bombing with armies of great artists...they are also the only great people that can induce golden ages, so they no longer are completely useless in small amounts...
There are probably some things I'm missing, but I point these things out to show that this expansion actually added a lot, mostly for the better...these people who bash Gods and Kings and Civ V in general just have an axe to grind...if you don't like the game, it isn't because it's a bad game, it's because it just doesn't appeal to you....
If you like Civ V, I think you will be very happy with the expansion...
--Edited to add some things I forgot...