An Initial Review of Civilization V

Recently, there was a free weekend on Steam for Sid Meier's Civilization:  Beyond Earth, and I took a crack at it.  I enjoyed it, even though I didn't finish it.  However, it occurred to me that I'd never actually played a game in the Civilization series.  All of the Civilization titles were 75% off on Steam that weekend, so I went ahead and picked up Sid Meier's Civilization V. 
I've finally finished my first game of it. 
I really quite enjoyed the game.  There's a lot to it, but because of the way that civilizations progress, it's not all dumped out at once.  Also, it's turn-based, so I'm not rushed while trying to learn it.  I did play it on the easy difficulty, but that gave me a chance to make some mistakes during my first play-through. 
I can't wait to play on the normal setting, and probably on a bigger map. 
One thing that I noticed in the design of the game is that, even if one isn't going for a given type of victory, it still behooves one to progress that area, so nothing gets abandoned.  For instance, even if one isn't going for domination victory, it's still a good idea to have a strong enough standing army to defend against invaders.  Likewise, Culture is useful both to make someone else's Culture Victory harder and because it unlocks special abilities. 
It's a short review, I know, but if you want an in-depth look at the mechanics - well, it's been out since 2010, so I'm sure that you can find reviews and wikis on it.