My main gripes with it.
The zoom, its all right up everyones ass. Naval battles look ridiculous because the ships are overly huge and fill the screen
The graphics, its a bit cartoony
Unit grouping, theres no formations.
The shit ai is still there where friendlys do nothing but spam villagers.
The defensive towers are USELESS. Jesus christ how piss weak do they need to be.
Story sucks. Royally.
Defence towers...again, why bother. In aoe2 they at least made you think twice. The great wall of china mission in the ghengis khan campaign, those towers will destroy you unless you have trebuchets. 3...just a couple of units needed.