First AoE for me. I hear very good things about III, so I gave this one a try.
All levels look the same. The history channel videos between battles are cool, but the playgame is boring and repetitive.
Graphics? Like 10 years ago. They are not bad, just the bare minimum I expect nowadays.The RECOMMENDED graphic card is a GeForce 970, with that I say everything.
I was expecting huge armies, fantastic in-game cinematics and such, like Cal of Duty or The lord of the rings. No, forget about it, you will be limited to 200 small boring units like in the 90s with StarCraft and similar. Why?
Collect wooden, collect food, collect gold, collect stone ... make a limited quantity of small units, go for it and repeat.
I feel they just wanted to cash in and have killed the franchise.