I've been playing this for the past week. As much as I loved the AoE games, I couldn't get into AoM in 2002 because I prefer history to mythology and the switch to 3D felt a little jarring to me at the time. So, this is my first time playing it past the first few missions and I'm enjoying it more than I expected to. It's not as different from AoE as I assumed. You can even play it more like an AoE game by concentrating on building non-mythical units and ignoring the god powers, at least in the campaign. Overall, I'm finally starting to understand why this game is beloved. Having the remaster helps, and it's a really good one. I've played through the Definition Editions of AoE and AoE II and this is just as good and looks and plays just like them. It's definitely the definitive edition of the game, even if they gave it a different name.