*PC gamer hat on* I Played Civ 3 and thought it was great, and one of the reasons I thought it was great was the slightly simplified graphics, they were clean and to the point, they got the job done.
They seemed to have made the cities in Revolution, look stupidly large compared to the landscape around them, and made it more brightly coloured and consoletard (as you so eloquently put it) friendly. Thats not what I want from a Civ game I want to be able to sit down survey my land, and decide who to batter next, it never crossed my mind that "oh that city looks very small and dully coloured", because lets face it cities are dull, they are not, as I saw in some screenshots, purple!
*Consoletard hat on* YAY! Civ on my 360, so I'm not going to complain to loudly about what is lets face it, not that much of a big deal. The animated combat graphics, if they're anything like the rest of Civs animations, of games gone by, should be quite funny.