Pros: Civilization diversity, excellent graphics and sound, adaptable to many styles of game play
Cons: 3 a.m. sneaks up when playing this game. Not available on MAC till September.
The bottom line: I recommend AoEIII to anyone who doesn't mind looking up to see they've just spent 5 hours playing a game they swore they'd just play for 1
As a fan of the original Age of Empires game, I have always looked forward to the expansions and improvements and AoEIII did not disappoint me in any way.

The game allows you to explore the new world as one of 8 civilizations. Each civilization has its own unique strengths and weaknesses and it's easy to find one which works for your style of play. There are also a good range of degrees of difficulty so this game works as well for a 10 yr. old as it does for a hard core gamers. (probably also a 10 yr. old)

Game play begins with a town center, an explorer and (with most civilizations) a native. Once the town center is built it releases some villagers and supplies, then it's up to you to decide whether to gather food quickly to age up or to begin gathering wood so your explorer can build trading posts (to bring the natives on to your side or to bring in experience, food, gold or wood from the trading routes). Each civilization has a home city (eg. Paris for the French) which sends shipments as you gain experience. Levelling up allows you to access more varied shipments so it's best to play as one civilization and gain all the enhancements than it is to continually switch between them.

In skirmish or online gameplay, competitors will be working their own strategy so you have to be ready to fend off armies at the same time as you are building and growing. Campaign mode is more mission driven and you'll be following a story set up by the game.

The graphics are impressive with blood spatters and debris falling from bombed buildings. The sound is subtle enough to add to game play without being annoying. The game loads up quickly on my non-gaming pc which has a very basic video card. You can play at full resolution or lower the quality to enable fast play on older computers.

Microsoft does a good job of providing patches and since the release of the game, there are other maps that have been released.

The Age of Empire series has been the one constant in my own gaming. It was one of the first PC games I owned and it's the franchise that has earned my loyalty.