After beating this game, I have thoughts as someone who doesn't feel much nostalgia from the older games but has played Civ 6 extensively and Civ 5 a bit growing up.

This game isn't as buggy and doesn't have as abhorrent UI as people make it out to be. The UI is especially of note here--it's certainly simplified and needs some small fixes but it isn't an objectively bad UI, at least in my eyes. It's pretty and it gets the job done decently (though that was in part from the quick patches Firaxis and co. released due to critique.) I should note that many of the Civ 6 experts who complain about the current UI being "atrocious" or whatnot tend to play Civ 6 with mods that completely added to, fixed, or changed the UI--it's not actually terribly different from the base Civ 6 UI, it's just that a few things have been moved / abstracted to separate screens.

The Eras system is, in my eyes, a good change--though that's a controversial opinion, and you may think otherwise upon playing. It, essentially, does a soft reset of the game with the general skeleton and structure of the civilization you've built in the previous era remaining intact but many other things being upgraded and reset or wiped. My personal feeling is that it allows Civ 7 to not fall into the ADHD pitfall the prior games have of resetting halfway through a game and starting a new one because you just were feeling a little tired of that save. Having to basically build 3 mini-countries with an overarching legacy between them is a great way of fixing that in my eyes, though I can totally see the argument against that--it's about preference, here.

The barbarian system and the City-State system has been merged, and in my eyes it is beautiful. One may argue that it could remove depth from the overall mechanics of the game by merging things. My opinion, is that the barbarian system now having more nuance than just "evil invader guys" with friendly and unfriendly groups and interactions and whatnot makes them feel more like actual players in the game and not just a nuisance, and you still get the general feel of the City-State system when it flips to become a proper city state with not a large amount of depth lost to compromise.

The new city-building system is genuinely perfect to someone like me who enjoys building up and seeing their little country hustle and bustle, there's a lot of strategy to it and it's also just really pretty and satisfying to see compared to the old builder-spamming system. You can tell that 6's District system was a direct precursor to this, and I love that system, but I find this one to be even more expressive.

The current Happiness system seems to strike a decent balance between the restrictive minmaxing of 5's Happiness system and the flowy vibe of 6's Amenity system. It doesn't force you into playing with essentially 4 cities the whole game like Civ 5 does and doesn't... not really punish you at all for expanding way too much like 6 does. The city limit system works well and it being something that varies depending on what you spec into makes sense. It can be mildly annoying to manage during the end-of-era crisis system (particularly with ones like Consolidated Power,) but that may be intentional.

Civ games have a horrible record of releasing half baked, and you can see a bit of that in this too--though I'd argue it has more content than base 6 by far. This game isn't perfect (where's the giant death robots?! come on,) but i think it's a new direction for the franchise and one that, while not for everyone, is one that I'm personally excited to see try to flourish. Only time will tell if Civ 7 will hold up as a backbone, but if nothing else it's certainly one that does something new and one that i'm rooting for,

After beating this game, I have thoughts as someone who doesn't feel much nostalgia from the older games but has played Civ 6 extensively and Civ 5 a bit growing up. This game isn't as buggy and doesn't have as abhorrent UI as people make it out to be. The UI is especially of note here--it's certainly simplified and needs some small fixes but it isn't an objectively bad UI, at least in my eyes. It's pretty and it gets the job done decently (though that was in part from the quick patches Firaxis and co. released due to critique.) I should note that many of the Civ 6 experts who complain about the current UI being "atrocious" or whatnot tend to play Civ 6 with mods that completely added to, fixed, or changed the UI--it's not actually terribly different from the base Civ 6 UI, it's just that a few things have been moved / abstracted to separate screens. The Eras system is, in my eyes, a good change--though that's a controversial opinion, and you may think otherwise upon playing. It, essentially, does a soft reset of the game with the general skeleton and structure of the civilization you've built in the previous era remaining intact but many other things being upgraded and reset or wiped. My personal feeling is that it allows Civ 7 to not fall into the ADHD pitfall the prior games have of resetting halfway through a game and starting a new one because you just were feeling a little tired of that save. Having to basically build 3 mini-countries with an overarching legacy between them is a great way of fixing that in my eyes, though I can totally see the argument against that--it's about preference, here. The barbarian system and the City-State system has been merged, and in my eyes it is beautiful. One may argue that it could remove depth from the overall mechanics of the game by merging things. My opinion, is that the barbarian system now having more nuance than just "evil invader guys" with friendly and unfriendly groups and interactions and whatnot makes them feel more like actual players in the game and not just a nuisance, and you still get the general feel of the City-State system when it flips to become a proper city state with not a large amount of depth lost to compromise. The new city-building system is genuinely perfect to someone like me who enjoys building up and seeing their little country hustle and bustle, there's a lot of strategy to it and it's also just really pretty and satisfying to see compared to the old builder-spamming system. You can tell that 6's District system was a direct precursor to this, and I love that system, but I find this one to be even more expressive. The current Happiness system seems to strike a decent balance between the restrictive minmaxing of 5's Happiness system and the flowy vibe of 6's Amenity system. It doesn't force you into playing with essentially 4 cities the whole game like Civ 5 does and doesn't... not really punish you at all for expanding way too much like 6 does. The city limit system works well and it being something that varies depending on what you spec into makes sense. It can be mildly annoying to manage during the end-of-era crisis system (particularly with ones like Consolidated Power,) but that may be intentional. Civ games have a horrible record of releasing half baked, and you can see a bit of that in this too--though I'd argue it has more content than base 6 by far. This game isn't perfect (where's the giant death robots?! come on,) but i think it's a new direction for the franchise and one that, while not for everyone, is one that I'm personally excited to see try to flourish. Only time will tell if Civ 7 will hold up as a backbone, but if nothing else it's certainly one that does something new and one that i'm rooting for,