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Wow, no problem with STEAM!
I have been waiting for some more positive reviews from other customers regarding Empire Total War. Like many of the other reviewers, I too have purchased all of the previous Total War series games with their expanions as well. In fact, I also purchased several new computers so I could play them as they came out over the years.

With that said, I finally decided to purchase Empire Total War, and subsequently Napoleon Total War, to see if the negative reviews were correct or not.

It sounded as though most reviews were due to a machine that couldn't handle the game. My currect computer is a DELL slimline, with a Nividia 9500GT, 1.7 Dual, and 3 gigs of RAM, so not too advanced, but a middle-road-computer.

When loaded on my computer through STEAM, the game ran perfectly fine to my surprise, even with the graphics turned up and unit sizes turned up too.

The battles themselves seem to take a lot longer then say Rome or Medieval Total War. However, with gunpowder-type units, it adds a whole new flavor to strategy and overall game enjoyment.

One recommendation I would make if you are afraid if your computer can run the game or not, I would download the Demo from STEAM first to see.

Pros: Overall enjoyment, unit special functions, battles on the sea now, Cannons actually do damage to an enemy (unlike Medieval II), huge amount of unit types.

Cons: Still need internet to play, AI seems to rush all enemies at you from one direction, not from your flanks.

Great game - seems much improved since launch
I purchased Empire: Total War after much dithering largely due to the many poor reviews I had read. After having played it for several weeks, I can honestly say that (after downloading and applying the patches), I've found ETW to be an excellent game. Many of the reviews criticize it heavily for using Steam, but for me the installation and activation were painless. In addition, the fact that the game can be played without the game CD in the drive alone makes tying it to Steam worth it, in my opinion. The gameplay is on the whole thoroughly enjoyable. My one criticism is that, in the Campaign mode, moving around the map can be jumpy and often the time it takes for the computer to perform the opponent nations' moves between turns is infuriatingly long. The battles are what truly define ETW, however, and I haven't experienced any lagging or slowness in either land or naval battles (the latter being a new and welcome addition to the Total War series).

On the whole, I am very satisfied with ETW. No doubt much of the criticism it received was entirely justified, but it has since been improved to the point where I have only a very few complaints.

I'll ever buy a sega game again!
The Steam rights management client that you have to work through keeps crashing my computer. It practically is a virus. Plus it takes 5 hours to download - one wonders why they even provide disks as they don't seem to do anything. I'll never buy one of Sega's games again.

Attacked for all the right reasons, but still good.
The game is still buggy even though the release was ages ago and hardcore fans and casual gamers alike are now holding little but contempt for CA. It's all hogwash though. CA has made a very good game and their latest patch (which made the AI actually able to fight back and attempt "tactics") shows they are doing what many developers would not have done with such a release. The bugs do detract from the performance, and CA deserves every bit of flak they get for it, but that doesn't mean the game is not worth purchasing or repeated play-through.

Empire is a great game that had the potential to be the best of it's kind (more so than any other Total war game) and is still worthy of praise. The bugs may detract from gameplay, but it's still totally playable anyway. The campaign is spectacular as well, more so than any other total war game or any other game attempting to achieve this level of scope (yeah, I've played Europa, which pales in comparison). The campaign in Empire makes this game worthy of repeated purchases and countless hours of loving gameplay. Good thing you have Steam so you never have to purchase it again, even if your copy gets destroyed by your marauding siblings or ex-girlfriends.

Speaking of Steam, Valve provides excellent support and server strength and is hardly enforcing DRM on Empire. You can run the game offline at any time and do not need to be logged in to save or advance. Requiring it is hardly an issue, unlike Ubisoft's ridiculous DRM and notoriously crappy servers, even though I'm in agreeance that it shouldn't have been.

Even though Empire lacks many of the excellent features that emerged with it's predecessor, Medieval II (such as detailed cities, sieges and almost limitlessly customizable battles) it is still worthy of your purchase and I guarantee that if you give it an honest try you will love it (and yes, "hate" it) as much as I do.

Never Again, Please
I was extremely excited when this game first came out, but man did everything go wrong. It turned out that I needed to install about 15 GB of info from online. Why wasn't it on discs? And through Steam? Ridiculous. I never even got to play it because my computer wouldn't be able to take it, and neither would I. The WORST part is that I couldn't return it once opened. It enraged me so much that I just threw the whole $50 game with a used activation code for a Steam account in the trash. I just want the Creative Assembly to see how negative the reviews on places like Amazon are so they know what we don't want- outrageous copy protection. Now CA will get NO money and angry customers. Smart investment, guys. I have deep fears for Shogun II Total War in 2011. If it turns out like this, we can all safely boycott anything else by CA, or any other protection mad company, forever.