Age of Empires IV: On the Dawn of a New Age

As a multi-decade fan of AoE II and current online player, I'm so disappointed by some of the creative decisions here.

The graphics, for one thing, look awful and make it difficult to take in the map at a glance. A lot of units look similar.

Why not just use high-res, 2D graphics based on 3D renders? Or even something closer to cell-shading, like what Breath of the Wild did?

I'm glad they wanted to support older machines, but this seems like the worst of all worlds.

I'm also not sold on the upgrade branches and hero units. The fun of AoE II is the "rock paper scissors" style mechanics, where nothing you do is a guaranteed good decision.

In IV, there are so many mechanics at play that outcomes seem more random and farther away from real-time chess.