Yeah, I remember playing the AOE III demo and being absolutely disgusted. It went from one of the best RTS games ever in a series, to a completely different game without nearly the same appeal or fun factor. They really dropped the ball.

What is wrong with Age of Empires 3? Also, why the hype behind something that was intended to be Warcraft with random maps?

I also have a hard time taking accusations of a game scoring in the 7-8 range as "worst ever":
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/age-of-empires-iii

Absolutely, the civs in AoM were very distinct and I applaud Ensemble for trying to innovate (although some might say the three distinct factions was copying Starcraft). But it confused AoE 2 players. We were happy with our 16 civs that were different almost only on the surface.

AoM did a lot of things right and with regards to pure gameplay it was actually better than AoE2. It just couldn't win over the huge AoE2 player base for various reasons.

It's really not that bad and actually did a good job of mixing the more positive elements of AOEII and AOM. I thought the railroad/trade routes and the ability to ally with locals introduced new strategies and methods to the game. For instance, a quick scout of you enemies position should ID some native camps nearby giving an easy way to Rush.

The civs were also quite diverse and unique and they had more than the 3 in AOM. For instance, the British were easily the best civ for having a late economic boom (each house gives an extra villager) whilst the French villagers were practically Military units in their own right making the difficult to rush but giving them extra military option if they want to rush. Then you could customise and level up a civ to suit your playstyle with shipment options.

Unfortunately, this is also it's biggest flaw. To be competitive you have to use the same civ. You can't chop and change like you could in AOEII and this was detrimental for multiplayer games imo. Actually, I didn't bother with multiplayer in AOEIII, so it was certainly a bad move. The time period also wasn't that exciting. I still think AOEI had the best time period and would love a true modern remake of that classic.

I actually liked all the "Age of..." games. I still played AOM from time to time with my girlfriend and AOEI has to be installed on my PC at any given time for when I have an itch for old school RTS.

Its appeal was its glorious art. I agree with the 2D-3D guy. Same thing happened to Stronghold Kingdoms' transition.

While I didn't play the campaign of AOEIII, I would suggest you get the expansions. The Warchiefs expansion will feel like AOE 3, however the Asian Dyansties expansion has a more AOE / II feel to it.

There's always AOEO (Age of Empires Online), which is originally what I thought this thread was going to be about. AOEO has both single player and multiplayer, but an emphasis on multiplayer after you achieve level 40.

Some people have a problem with the more cartoonish style of AOEO, but the game is pretty good. Unfortunately, over the summer they tweaked the gaming AI and made the game significantly more challenging. For example, if you weren't necessarily good (like me) you could still win, it just took more time. Now you have to really educate yourself about the game, the units, and the enemy units. In my own opinion, the AI is as good, if not better than the player, which makes the game extremely challenging at times.

I remember playing AOE 1 demo 100+ hours and AOE2 full game over 9000...AOE3 I played 2 hours..I don't know..Was thinking giving it new try now.

That demo was all I played for months. Best demo I've ever played

Do not even bring Empire Earth into this.  That series had the same issue.  The first one was absolutely amazing, and the second one was horrible compared to it.  The third one was absolutely atrocious.

The sequel was an absolute waste of potential. It had some great ideas but completely ruined the implementation. Didn't even bother with the third.

Now the first one, I remember I played an 8 player random map that lasted 29 hours... epic!