Sorry, busy weekend, I think the sale is over now. Yeah, I bought it, and actually love it so far. I have a very limited amount of playtime, and this kept me up until 3AM on the first night I got it, a little short on sleep now lol.
Like I mentioned before, I've never played any of the civ series so I don't have anything to compare it to, but this is fun to me. It's not so difficult to start that you need to read a lot about it, the beginner and tutorial modes assist you in getting started, and it looks like you can get pretty complex with the advanced game options if you'd like to. I haven't played a scenario yet.
It works fine on my older laptop (Dell XPS M1530) and the graphics are decent. I don't know if I would have paid full price for it, but it will probably keep me interested for a while, like most of the other Sid Meier games do.