Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have long been a fan of the Settlers. While Settlers 7 does improve upon some of the criticisms of the last game, they have actually managed to make others worse. And to top of the whole fiasco Ubi Soft has decided to use this game as a vehicle to launch the most intrusive form of DRM seen yet. For starters the game switches to a more true 3D aspect, while this may sound improved... it's not. The problem is it tends to be much more difficult to move around the map and control the camera. I understand the desire to improve the graphics but switching from a more 2D isometric view to 3D is not always needed. Secondly town building has become much more cluttered and your villages will end up feeling like gigantic messes. Lastly and the most damning thing for this game in my opinion is Ubi Soft's inclusion of a new form of DRM. You are now required to log into Ubi's servers to conduct just about every action you do with this game outside of playing. To launch the game, load the menu, save a game or load a game you must connect you Ubi's servers. If you cannot connect (playing on a laptop, serving overseas or your ISP goes down) you can not play or save/load any games. Not only must you connect to Ubi's servers but you must also have a Ubi Soft account. It's also worth keeping in mind that ALL your saved games have been hijacked by Ubi and are now stored on their servers and not your computer.