• Publisher: Sega
  • Release Date: Sep 2, 2013
User Score
4.4

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 3974 Ratings

User score distribution:
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  1. Mar 4, 2014
    6
    Hello, this is my first review I've ever done on Metacritic and on any Review aggregator site for that matter. I'd like viewers to take note that while this is my first public review of a game, it is no less sincere.

    Now as for Rome 2, not a terrible game by any means, but certainly a step backwards from Total War's previous entry, Shogun 2. Putting aside the rocky launch that Rome 2
    Hello, this is my first review I've ever done on Metacritic and on any Review aggregator site for that matter. I'd like viewers to take note that while this is my first public review of a game, it is no less sincere.

    Now as for Rome 2, not a terrible game by any means, but certainly a step backwards from Total War's previous entry, Shogun 2. Putting aside the rocky launch that Rome 2 had, it is a visually stunning and decent Strategy game. The campaign map is huge, the faction roster is plentiful and diverse, and the visuals and animations are outstanding. This is where my praise of the games ceases.

    Where Rome 2 falters are in it's far too streamlined gameplay and underdeveloped features. To start off, the new Political System is "Needless" to say the best. The 3 agents variants are redundant as they can all perform the same tasks. Magic boats make the game too trivial .Skill/tech trees are skimp and simplified from Shogun 2. While I am in favor of the new province system, managing settlements have been scaled much too far (i.e. no longer can you build roads or even simple wall defenses such as palisades, buildings trees are skimp and choices are very limited). Wall's are null and void thanks to the ridiculous torches. Multiplayer is very bare-bones in comparison to Shogun 2 and it's general avatar feature. The idiotic decision to add flags in open battles ( I know they have since been remove, but it was such stupid decision I had to bring it up). Abundance of "Magic" abilities for units is also ridiculous.

    A lot of the little details from previous Total War games are completely gone or skimped out on. General speeches are now only 2 brief lines of dialogue. Mini-movies for agents, unit recruiting, faction intros, and events are largely absent. The UI is very generic and uninspired in comparison to previous Total War games. Historical events and info tidbits during the campaign are gone aswell.

    As for Technical issues, the A.I. is extremely incompetent in both siege and field battles and in campaign. Unit-blobbing is still existent as well as optimization issues (the game run just fine for me, but I do not doubt others who have run into performance issues with the game and have adequate machines).

    All in all, Rome 2 is a decent strategy game it's just buried beneath pointless and shallow features and simplification. With the help of mods, the game becomes much more enjoyable. I'm just so disappointed with the game, even with a smaller budget, Shogun 2 achieved much more than Rome 2.
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  2. Oct 9, 2013
    2
    Have sunk about 75 hours into this game over the course of launch until today.

    Even after 3 patches, the game is still buggy. Just when they this game breaking "end-turn" crash to desktop bug I had, up comes another ctd bug whenever I click to inspect a town's stats, at which I've completely lost what hope I have had left for this game and is now currently typing this review. Game is
    Have sunk about 75 hours into this game over the course of launch until today.

    Even after 3 patches, the game is still buggy. Just when they this game breaking "end-turn" crash to desktop bug I had, up comes another ctd bug whenever I click to inspect a town's stats, at which I've completely lost what hope I have had left for this game and is now currently typing this review.

    Game is not optimized, lagging horribly during the campaign map and strange unit stuttering during the battles. Its not low framerate, unlike the campaign map, since my UI and Camera during the battle is responsive, but the units are moving at 10 fps.

    Once you get past all this you then realize the game itself is poorly designed:
    Bad AI in Campaign and Battle. I have had 3 armies in an enemy's province, with 5 different agents burning buildings and doing all sorts of crap to get the enemy to start a war. Well, they never do. In battle, units have a tendency to charge your lines but right when they are about 4 seconds away they get a morale shock and retreat but after they've retreated far enough, they usually decide to charge again, and then once again they will.... you get the point (also seen in Angry Joe's review).

    Unit balancing issues. Such as an elephant general winning over a 2000-man army.

    Finally, there are also parts of the game that seems either unfinished or just pointless. Some being the faction politics system. Civil War is inevitable, much like realm divide in Shogun 2, once your imperium hits a certain level. After you have crushed the rebellion, the influence system doesnt matter anymore, at least no in my game. My ruling dynasty is forever stuck at 71%, no matter what I do. The options to assassinate political enemies and such is gone. The retainer household card system, which you gain randomly during turns also seems to just stop at a certain point. So if your game is going well into the 250th turn or so, you'll soon notice that you won't be getting anymore new retainers for your household. So eventually, your generals will just not have special stats because apparently CA didn't even intend for your game to go past 150th turn with out you winning, quitting, or crashing permanently.

    Bottomline. Don't buy it.
    People keep saying give it time to patch or wait a couple of months. Well, I'm here to say unless these patches completely overhaul some of the mechanics, it just isn't worth it, for $59.99.
    $19.99 on the otherhand, would be great, just for laughs at least.
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  3. Oct 13, 2013
    1
    This game is awful and its an example of a developers who dont care or respects its fanbase. To put it bluntly, the release of this game was immoral. Ever since the game was announced there has been a heavy focus on visuals and yes the visuals are nice but everything else is terrible.

    The game is bad thats no mystery but the real mystery is how various magazines can give this game a
    This game is awful and its an example of a developers who dont care or respects its fanbase. To put it bluntly, the release of this game was immoral. Ever since the game was announced there has been a heavy focus on visuals and yes the visuals are nice but everything else is terrible.

    The game is bad thats no mystery but the real mystery is how various magazines can give this game a good review. I cant help it but I must put on my tinfoil hat and say they have all accepted bribes. The difference between user reviews and official reviews shows it.
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  4. Oct 25, 2013
    0
    without a doubt the worst game of all time CA.
    Lacking content, boring, poorly optimized, and soulless.

    DO NOT BUY IF YOU DO NOT want to be ripped

    not dubbed in Spanish or Italian
  5. Oct 26, 2013
    4
    It's not very often a series declines game after game but the Total War titles seem to be on a downward spiral to nothingness and Rome 2 highlights the sheer drop in quality from the excellence of the original.

    The ambition of the game seems to be overriding the quality of the finished product. It's a half baked game that is woefully presented, cumbersome AI and a very bland interface
    It's not very often a series declines game after game but the Total War titles seem to be on a downward spiral to nothingness and Rome 2 highlights the sheer drop in quality from the excellence of the original.

    The ambition of the game seems to be overriding the quality of the finished product. It's a half baked game that is woefully presented, cumbersome AI and a very bland interface with management options lacking and a dreadfully simplistic challenge which you'll find exceedingly tedious over a session. The shockingly poor technical side adds to disappointment with considerable framerate problems and sloppy realtime battles. As you progress. the end of turn system becomes intolerable with turns taking in excess of minutes as the AI plays catch-up. This boils down to the seemingly dated engine and leaves you waiting without control for an unacceptable amount of time. This kills the flow and adds to the overall dismay.

    CA either need to go back to the games' roots or sell the licence because this series is dwindling to oblivion. If you want a fine strategy game of the Roman era; you'd be better off re-installing the original. It may be over 10 years older but it's streets ahead of today's messy attempt at rejuvenating the Total War collapse.
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  6. Oct 28, 2013
    3
    This game is the downfall of TW series. Bad optimisation, low fps, nonexistent AI, extremely quick battles, AI doesn't use siege battles, there's nothing strategic in siege battles, broken formations, useless political system, op transport ships make the battle ships look useless, too many bugs and many more negative things.
    Positive things: Fancy graphics
    To anyone consider buying this
    This game is the downfall of TW series. Bad optimisation, low fps, nonexistent AI, extremely quick battles, AI doesn't use siege battles, there's nothing strategic in siege battles, broken formations, useless political system, op transport ships make the battle ships look useless, too many bugs and many more negative things.
    Positive things: Fancy graphics
    To anyone consider buying this game, DON'T! It's so broken, that the current patches made little improvement. Better buy this game when it will be 75% discounted.
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  7. Oct 25, 2013
    2
    Nothing good came from this game.

    Good things : - Better graphics (of course!) - Naval combat. The naval combat itself is fun enough. But the AI is useless. - Naval and ground combat in one map. Great concept, lackluster execution. Bad things : - Bad campaign, takes hours just to go to next turn. - Troops has really stupid AI. Enemy troops will charge at you, and break off at
    Nothing good came from this game.

    Good things :
    - Better graphics (of course!)
    - Naval combat. The naval combat itself is fun enough. But the AI is useless.
    - Naval and ground combat in one map. Great concept, lackluster execution.

    Bad things :
    - Bad campaign, takes hours just to go to next turn.
    - Troops has really stupid AI. Enemy troops will charge at you, and break off at the last moment, and keep repeating it, while taking a lot of fire from your archers. Even though the enemy unit is superior, they don't want to charge you.
    - Stupid flags. Nobody wants to capture flags in the middle of the war.
    - Campaign map LOOKS great, but too bad, the campaign AI sucks.

    This game is an example of a game that put graphics above game play experience. The game has a lot of interesting new concepts, but the AI of the game (which should be a focus of a strategy game) is really really lacking. Nobody wants to look at fancy graphics and fancy ships, we want enemy AI that (at least) give a convincing fight.
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  8. Oct 28, 2013
    1
    First the good things:
    By the looks it is of the CD cover and graphics it is good looking. There is a big campaign map which gives you the ability to conquer the lands from Asia to northern Europe.
    Multiplayer campaign map where you can play with a friend either as enemies or allies. Many factions. Rolling balls and other traps in the battles. The diplomacy has been improved. Bad
    First the good things:
    By the looks it is of the CD cover and graphics it is good looking. There is a big campaign map which gives you the ability to conquer the lands from Asia to northern Europe.
    Multiplayer campaign map where you can play with a friend either as enemies or allies.
    Many factions.
    Rolling balls and other traps in the battles.
    The diplomacy has been improved.

    Bad things:
    It runs slow!
    The campaign map is slow and you have to watch these horrible slow-motion battles on the campaign map after you have played a battle. The movement of troops on campaign map is slow. The battles is slow because you have to wait 5 minutes before the enemy approaches your army even when you choose the fastest speed.

    Stupid AI!
    The siege AI is stupid it throws torches at your wall and only tries to get into one of your gates! You can defeat the AI's greatest army without any troops. Your walls will kill them and with burning oil and some troops based at the gates you get easy win.
    The campaign AI doesn't do much except a few nations.

    Unrealistic!
    In the game you can throw burning torches at a steel gate and get it to burn. In a region you can only have walls in the "capital" in that region.

    Features removed from the original game.
    Building of walls. The family tree is removed which gives you no relationship with your generals and you really don't care if they die or live, because they die so quickly. Population is removed and now you can recruit unlimited troops and build all the buildings you want. The turns is now one turn=one year, and seasons has been removed. There is a limit for elite units in this game.

    Spam in messages.
    You get a lot of messages about agents sabotaging your armies or cities expect around ten of these messages each turn. Slave revolt and some politics you really don't care about and choose a random option.

    Maybe the game will be fixed about one year to 1½ but I will not get my hopes up. But it is a beautiful game and therefore the score 1. But I don't play games for graphics alone so I would prefer the Rome I game instead of this at the moment.
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  9. Oct 25, 2013
    4
    Horrible game, great marketing campaign. They started the hype early on this one. We are all suckers. I want my money back. Oh wait, it's already gone in that huge marketing budget.
  10. Oct 26, 2013
    0
    I'm left to wonder: did they even try with this game? Very buggy, box art is impractical and annoying, meters instead of of units...etc. Most facets of the game are unnecessary or buggy. In actuality, the game plays like a 6 but it's clear to me that they just don't care with making Total War games anymore.
  11. Oct 27, 2013
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Shame, the worst game in the series total war, incomplete, without translation into Spanish and Italian.
    Full of bugs, devoid of content, 54.99 A FRAUD!!!.

    resort to modders for the game does well,,

    to shame.
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  12. Oct 27, 2013
    8
    I just picked this game up and frankly Its exactly what I wanted from a total war game that being said it has some fps issues and I had to install a couple of mods to tune the traits and character ageing which were both unwisely setup to say the least (the traits were boring and everyone drops dead of old age way to fast by default). But hey its total war and the AI got patched and can nowI just picked this game up and frankly Its exactly what I wanted from a total war game that being said it has some fps issues and I had to install a couple of mods to tune the traits and character ageing which were both unwisely setup to say the least (the traits were boring and everyone drops dead of old age way to fast by default). But hey its total war and the AI got patched and can now fight back! Expand
  13. Oct 27, 2013
    3
    To put it plainly Rome II has certainly made it clear to all Total War fans that there was no real intention of making this game better even after so many years. Rome I is far superior to this dreadful nightmare. This is most evidently seen in the AI. Holy sh&I?THE AI. Well, I know this statement is seen in almost every review, but I just do not believe this single fact can beTo put it plainly Rome II has certainly made it clear to all Total War fans that there was no real intention of making this game better even after so many years. Rome I is far superior to this dreadful nightmare. This is most evidently seen in the AI. Holy sh&I?THE AI. Well, I know this statement is seen in almost every review, but I just do not believe this single fact can be overemphasized. After more than 15 hrs put in this game I realized for one the campaign gameplay would never get better, as it continuously becomes so dull that it becomes aggravating, and second, the ridiculous time it takes for each turn to end. Sigh. This game is a shame and a mockery to all of us who were sucked in to believing that yes indeed this game would be better than its predecessor. Expand
  14. Oct 29, 2013
    1
    as a huge fan of the original rome total war, I was eagerly awaiting for the release of Rome II as they hyped this game to death. i can only say that i am utterly devastated by this game ,and it makes me kinda sad to see such a miserable sequel to the game i grew up with and enjoyed playing for more than 3 years.
    from the technical side: a the game is clearly in beta phase, the graphics
    as a huge fan of the original rome total war, I was eagerly awaiting for the release of Rome II as they hyped this game to death. i can only say that i am utterly devastated by this game ,and it makes me kinda sad to see such a miserable sequel to the game i grew up with and enjoyed playing for more than 3 years.
    from the technical side: a the game is clearly in beta phase, the graphics can't in any way look even close to what we've been shown in the siege of carthage video a year before the game's release plenty of bugs and game breaking crashes ,utter failure on the optimisation side that was clearly a work of amateurs :the warscape engine is just broken.
    now to the most important issue in this game due to gameplay and design choices it's the lack of overall fun the feeling of the one more turn is dead and gone the game is so boring ,shallow and soulless, due mostly to the removed features in this game ,the ones that made the campaign so enjoyable ,and instead replaced some of them them with new ones that actually make no sens at all take the example of the moronic so called politics system. i don't even get why they called it system where all you have to do is click on random buttons without knowing what result will this have on your faction's politics .also the removal of family tree the burning down of metal gates with stupid torches, the absolutely incapable AI ,units can't keep formation, no strategic sense in battles, playing romans is the same thing as playing barbarians ,fights always develop into major blobs so you can't even see the fancy new animation they were bragging about ridiculous naval battles,arcady battles, restricted liberty in building choices and on and on... i can keep mentioning the major cons of this game all day long .so you got it, as a veteran total war fan from 2004 with rome 1. i am more than disappointed with this game all that have been promised about a masterpiece was all lies and marketing hype i couldn't enjoy the game for it lacks most of what made the total war series so great and is an insult to the customers and especially the total war veterans .
    PS the only thing that i liked was the beauty of the campaign map and there's isn't even seasons changing with turns so mehhh is al i gotta say THIS game is the downfall of the series
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  15. Oct 28, 2013
    2
    This game just just isn't fun at all. I have no idea what they did, when I got any of the earlier TW games, I always sat in my chair for hours and days and close to months to play the game. But not on this, and the game is broken in every thinkable way possible. At the start I was hyped as hell, probably as everybody else, how could CA screw this up? They couldn't! Even with 40% largerThis game just just isn't fun at all. I have no idea what they did, when I got any of the earlier TW games, I always sat in my chair for hours and days and close to months to play the game. But not on this, and the game is broken in every thinkable way possible. At the start I was hyped as hell, probably as everybody else, how could CA screw this up? They couldn't! Even with 40% larger budjet to the game then Shogun 2 TW. Apparantly they managed to do it. I think personally it has something with their policy of having the minimum demands which they always have had. But anyways, the game is broken. Especially the A.I, they give no challenge whatsoever, they are stupid tactically, invading a harbor with 1 boat, and engaging, people that won't jump of the boat, and locking them stuck in the ship, and making you lose the battle because you cannot target them and kill them. I just hope the community and the endless (but slow) patches from CA can fix it to make it atleast playable. Expand
  16. Oct 29, 2013
    4
    Horribly disappointing game. So much potential lost in this series due to this game and where it could have been and where it went.

    Gameplay is lacking on soo many levels!! As soon as you hit "Start Battle" the whole reason to even purchase a TW game goes out the window as your units and the AI units become a visual mob-mosh pit-pile of black ants fighting at a standing distance. Its
    Horribly disappointing game. So much potential lost in this series due to this game and where it could have been and where it went.

    Gameplay is lacking on soo many levels!! As soon as you hit "Start Battle" the whole reason to even purchase a TW game goes out the window as your units and the AI units become a visual mob-mosh pit-pile of black ants fighting at a standing distance. Its such a disappointment. How can CA go from the visually stunning ETW, Napoleon, Shogun II to this?

    Unit abilities are weak, uninspired, difficult to manage, completely unnecessary for battles that last 2 minutes or less. Can you imagine? TWO minutes and a battle between 5,000 vs 4700 men is over with. You barely have time to even tell a unit to move-attack-brace before it becomes a mosh pit of indistinguishable masses. So now you have no idea if your units are using shield wall, phalanx or just some form of chaos/anarchy attack.

    Campaign AI is a complete and total step back from other TW title in that nations-tribes refuse to attack you and will instead wander about the map on sightseeing tours. Imagine if you will an army of 9000 men, just 2 days outside of Rome and the Legions stationed there decided to simply go off to Naples for some R'n'R? This occurs constantly around the map. Or entire armies will become navies to sail around the Mediterranean looking for mermaids.

    Bottomline, even if this game is half price its over-priced in its current state. Even as a $9.99 Steam deal its borderline, and that's being generous.
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  17. Oct 29, 2013
    1
    Very bad compared to the previous Total War, specially Shogun II. Poorly optimized, bad/bugged AI, clunky and inefficient UI. Naval battles are a joke with free transport.

    Only good thing is the provincial system.
  18. Oct 31, 2013
    1
    I have many times promised myself "I'll never buy a Total War game again!" The release versions have been too unpolished for my taste, sometimes outright broken. However, I've always been won back. I pre-ordered Rome 2, and my expectations were very high. The previews and hype gave the impression of a superb game. The truth, was honestly quite underwhelming. First of all, the performanceI have many times promised myself "I'll never buy a Total War game again!" The release versions have been too unpolished for my taste, sometimes outright broken. However, I've always been won back. I pre-ordered Rome 2, and my expectations were very high. The previews and hype gave the impression of a superb game. The truth, was honestly quite underwhelming. First of all, the performance is awful. My computer vastly exceeds the recommended specs, but I can still barely play on medium-low settings. The AI is terrible. I easily win every battle, with minimal losses. The between-turn loading times are too long. Naval battles are a total joke why did they destroy the functional naval battles from Empire or Shogun 2? Some game play elements like the senate and the tech tree are useless or odd at best. Worst of all they already started selling DLC, even though the game in itself is hardly finished. In summary: An unfinished game, and atrocious marketing. Wait a year untill this game is in the budget bin, and buy a pack with all DLC included. Maybe then you'll get a finished game. Expand
  19. Jan 8, 2014
    5
    This game is a disappointment for Total War fans, especially the ones who loved the original Rome: Total War game. The game could have been the best in the series, but it is buggy, unoptimized, and unpolished. However, if you're not a fan of the series, and you're new to the total war series, then you might find this to be a fun and interesting experience, especially if you enjoy RTSThis game is a disappointment for Total War fans, especially the ones who loved the original Rome: Total War game. The game could have been the best in the series, but it is buggy, unoptimized, and unpolished. However, if you're not a fan of the series, and you're new to the total war series, then you might find this to be a fun and interesting experience, especially if you enjoy RTS games.

    I believe this game should have had several more months if not an entire year of extra work, and I'll tell you why. Even on a high-end PC, this game runs poorly. Check for benchmarks and you'll see this game only getting 35 FPS average from systems with an Nvidia TITAN GPU. This has bad engineering written all over it. This game also suffers from a tremendous amount of bugs. The AI is really lacking when they can't even make basic decisions such as taking back a victory point from you less they lose in 50 seconds. To be honest, the AI always has been weak, but that's rather understandable. It's probably one of the hardest AIs to program, and being a programmer myself, I can say it would be a rather difficult logical challenge. Most people just don't understand this. Trust me, if it was easy, then the AI would be brilliant, but it's not. However, it does not excuse the AI's inability to perform actions such as climbing a ladder (no, they can't even do that sometimes). Lastly, the game itself just seems unpolished if not lacking a lot of content. The political system is not explained nor is comprehensible. It just seems useless. There are no extra content videos (except for a general death) to give the campaign life as there usually is, and a feature, previous in the Shogun 2 multiplayer, has been stripped from Rome 2. I could be wrong, but it just seemed like the game was rushed and incomplete. It was as though the development had to make some tough decision that would not only leave out content, but cheapen it just so the game could be released on time. This is probably due to an agreement CA made with SEGA. Mike Simpson even mentioned before with the release of Empire (another Total War game) that there biggest customer was SEGA, and that games have to be released on time at the expense of quality.

    On a side note, I am also having trouble understanding how this game got such positive scores from big name reviewers such as Gamespot and IGN. (Actually, if you read the Gamespot review, you'll notice that it is vague and without merit, the reviewer doesn't seem to mention and specifics, and uses "big" words to cover this up. They probably only played the game for a few hours, and called it quits. There are no screenshots or videos by Gamespot to be found post release for that game.) I have just lost faith in those companies.

    Anyway, I don't want to convey anger just disappointment. I was so excited for this game. In fact, I had never been so pumped for a game in my entire life. I pre-ordered without hesitation, and I haven't pre-ordered a game in several years. I'm just saddened by the state of this game. If you're enjoying Rome 2, then I'm happy for you. I just wish I could.
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  20. Jan 14, 2014
    0
    this game is really worse to buy it. after i played 100. only i get from this crap was increase my hate for the game even im fancier of this series. I will not preorder again in my life. that s all i will gave to CA
  21. Jan 18, 2014
    1
    CA not getting behind Multi player community, horrible bugs/AI making poor single player, maddening replay errors, gutted! Where was the promised sequel to the great Rome 1?
  22. Jan 19, 2014
    6
    I have logged just over 100 hours in Rome 2 and I have played at least once every other total war game. I have to say this is not the worst I have played but it certainly is not the best. I have owned the game since its launch date pre-ordering out of my extreme excitement for it but found myself disappointed, if asked then I would have given it a 3 at best but with the patches itI have logged just over 100 hours in Rome 2 and I have played at least once every other total war game. I have to say this is not the worst I have played but it certainly is not the best. I have owned the game since its launch date pre-ordering out of my extreme excitement for it but found myself disappointed, if asked then I would have given it a 3 at best but with the patches it certainly has improved but still not enough to be the game it should have been. Though the diplomacy is still shoddy and honestly the AI has marginally improved the look of the game graphically and the fact that the AI does have it's moments still makes this a decent game but nothing else. Personally I would have still gotten the game BUT I would have to play it mod heavy much like I have for the last month. Expand
  23. Feb 25, 2014
    8
    Earlier on, sure, this game was very buggy. The campaign sucked because of bad AI and there were bad system/graphical bugs too. But it has become a much more polished game with consecutive patches and an excellent modding community. OK initially the game was a problem but now it is quite an alluring game all things considered. Loving the multiplayer and the campaigns are now much moreEarlier on, sure, this game was very buggy. The campaign sucked because of bad AI and there were bad system/graphical bugs too. But it has become a much more polished game with consecutive patches and an excellent modding community. OK initially the game was a problem but now it is quite an alluring game all things considered. Loving the multiplayer and the campaigns are now much more challenging (and varied with all the scenario mods). Expand
  24. Jun 2, 2014
    10
    Ever since the game was published, it was BS. There was bad AI, many glitches that really pissed off gamers including me but as the times goes, the game(patched) and became the best total game ever!!!

    Go to www.youtube.com/user/lionheartx10 for awesome rome total war 2 walkthrough
  25. May 13, 2014
    0
    Total War: Nope

    Seriously though, all CA has to do is look at the mods for rome 1 and medieval 2 to see how to make these games awsome. Anyone who has played total war realism or stainless steel knows what I'm talking about. This game is as far from those mods as it can get. Bring on the mods people!
  26. Jun 8, 2014
    9
    I think it was a great game could be a ten but a few issues. AI is too easy not a challenge to play campaign. More diverse units and elephants and chariots I find to be to powerful. Campaign is good except for AI but the diplomacy and everything else is fine. I gave it a 9/10 for being rome total war 2 but for being a total war game I would give it a 5/10. I think that CA rushed this gameI think it was a great game could be a ten but a few issues. AI is too easy not a challenge to play campaign. More diverse units and elephants and chariots I find to be to powerful. Campaign is good except for AI but the diplomacy and everything else is fine. I gave it a 9/10 for being rome total war 2 but for being a total war game I would give it a 5/10. I think that CA rushed this game I still think they have potential to make the greatest total war game and the best strategy game ever, which I think their other games are. I think it has improved in campaign in the fact of how you manage everything, and I like the size of the maps and the tons of different battle setting such as coastal battles and such. I just think when it comes to AI and actually fighting it falls short and the other games to me looked more polish, and are much better to play fights on also I think they went backwards on graphics as well. It doesn't really deserve a nine I am just being easy on the fact that fighting battle are not fun and are stupidly easy because I think how the campaign works its an improvement. Expand
  27. Jul 16, 2014
    0
    So this game is poorly optimized and runs difficult even on high end PCs.The AI i soo stupid that makes the player wanna leave the game.Oh there's a ton of glitches and the graphics feel empty even on high resolution.On the campain map the turns take forever to pass and the city management is the worst of the entire series..Want more? never play this game!
  28. Jul 25, 2014
    0
    I have loved and owned every Total war game sense Rome 1. But i must say this is the worst one i have ever played. I love total war and i just hope the next one will be better because this one has just made my insides hurt.
  29. Jul 27, 2014
    3
    Bad AI? YES / Worse than before? TRUE / What about seasons? BUY DLC / Sieging? STILL FRUSTRATING / Usable formations? WITH MOD / Nice units? DETAILED BUT UGLY / Worth buying? HELL NO
  30. Oct 1, 2014
    0
    The cradle has truly fallen here. A year has passed, numerous obnoxious DLC's have been released and more money has been asked for, yet we are still left with BUGS THAT ARE HERE NOT EVEN SINCE THE RELEASE BUT SINCE EMPIRE TOTAL WAR. I suppose they are called "features" these days. Ever since SEGA took over as publisher the series has been in decline, by my standards, culminating in thisThe cradle has truly fallen here. A year has passed, numerous obnoxious DLC's have been released and more money has been asked for, yet we are still left with BUGS THAT ARE HERE NOT EVEN SINCE THE RELEASE BUT SINCE EMPIRE TOTAL WAR. I suppose they are called "features" these days. Ever since SEGA took over as publisher the series has been in decline, by my standards, culminating in this sinking of Rome. The theme here is: release a product with content withheld, then force the saddened customer to be drip fed all the proper parts of the game via DLC. The series before SEGA stepped in , lacked only proper multiplayer servers, the rest worked and was a pleasure to play, a work of love. Post SEGA... multiplayer stability is as always not here but the single player experience has been destroyed as well, particularly in this release. The multiplayer campaign suffers from the exact same problems in all it's iterations starting with the beta in empire and throughout Napoleon, Shogun II and now Rome II. There are no bugs in Total War: Rome II, the game itself is a giant Scolopendra on Your hdd. Expand
Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 71 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 49 out of 71
  2. Negative: 7 out of 71
  1. Nov 18, 2013
    74
    The game is far less polished than Shogun 2, and a few more patches will help, but Rome II is still a flawed game that is underwhelming when compared to previous titles in the franchise.
  2. Nov 6, 2013
    70
    And here’s the rub: every addition, every sub-system, every mechanic is subservient to War. War is what Total War is really about. Everything else not directly related to conflict comes across as ancillary. Rome II is a game for warmongers, on both the campaign map and, obviously, on the battlefield. When peace is happening, nothing is happening. When war is happening, Rome comes alive.
  3. PC PowerPlay
    Oct 28, 2013
    40
    If you will play literally anything featuring Total War and Rome in the same title and don't value your time, this is for you. [Nov 2013, p.80]