there are definitely some gaps that i hope will be filled by mods or future patches/content, but overall i think it definitely is an improvement overall.
the biggest problem i've had is that science seems to move way too quickly, every game i've played i've easily ended up in future tech way before being close enough to any victory type, and production isn't fast enough to match this. not sure if this is just a balancing issue for quick/online speed, i should probably play some games on standard speed and different difficulty levels to see if this remains