This article filled me with nerd rage, but then, you recently defended that so be prepared to have it unleashed...
Civ 5 might have some evolutionary leaps forward. But for every leap forward, they have taken three back, and the remaining is a dumbed down RTS-clone.
See, strategy games, and 4x's in particular, are dependent upon choices: Having a large number of different paths and choosing which/combining different elements is what makes a good 4x experience, and having many different strategies is what defines a good 4x. In civ 5, sadly, everything but the war aspect has been dumbed down.
OK, so let me count the ways:
First, all the diplomatic modifiers have been removed... People try to say that they are simply not shown, but I don't believe that; the civ 5 AI is a completely irrational psychopath that will declare war then five turns later give you all it's cities for peace.
Now, some will point to the introduction of city states as a diplomatic innovation, but what you fail to take into consideration is that all interaction with these is dependent upon a completely two dimensional slider where you gain affection by doing quests or giving money, and lose it over time. That's it.
Second, and most importantly, the economy has taken a massive dumbing down. All the improvements are only +1, with farms upgrading to +2 close to water and trading posts being +2 gold. And that's it. Compare this to civ 4, where tile yields got up around 5-6 for important tiles, there were many more improvements to choose among, and if that was not enough their yields differed widely with your level of tech, government etcetera. One or two good tiles could mean the difference between a great and mediocre city. Contrast this to civ 5 where everything is bland and samey, the only thing to really avoid is desert.
Not only that but they removed sliders and made science population-specific. In previous iterations, balancing money with science was a hard choice and one to build your strategy around. Now, gone. This is made worse by the fact that science is based on population, of all things, which means that no matter how hard you try you can't fuck up science. In civ 4 you had to trade science/money if you wanted expansion, via the city upkeep system. Not so in civ 5, where global happiness doesn't take distance into account - in other word, yet another strategic aspect taken out.
Third, the buildings are also massively dumbed down. this post [http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=384680] explains it better than I, but essentially, you'll only ever want to build a very few amount of buildings. While that is alright seen in isolation, this means that the only thing to actually do... Is waging war.
Really, civ 5 is a warmongers dream. War weariness is out; science is indepenent on gold, meaning that going to war no longer hurts your science; very few buildings to build, and no diplomatic interaction with civilizations due to them being psychopathic...
Now, hexagons made wars better, but AI still cannot deal with ranged units any good. And certain civs like japan are ridiculously overpowered. In spite of units being able to walk on water, AI's cannot do naval invasions any good.
So really, the only realistic path is to build more units, then war. Hence the comparison with RTS's, cuz' this one doesn't have the builder aspect of 4x's at all.
Oh, and before I forgot: The difficulty levels on this game are laughably low. I am challenged by monarch in civ 4, but playing civ 5 on a similar level feels like playing on chieftain!!
PS The bonus to Egyptians is pretty mediocre; for comparison, the "industrial" trait in civ 4 gave 50% bonus, and in that game people had two traits... The reason why the Egyptians get all the wonders is that they have a higher priority on them; it is not really hard to get wonders before them. This statement makes me wonder whether you have actually played a civ before.
