Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Return of Rome Review (Cal Gore)
To start off they left it ambiguous up until shortly before the release whether they were going to implement the original AoE1 campaigns. I like many people presumed they would because after releasing AoE1DE in a horrific state and never really attempting to fix it, it would seem shortsighted to release a DLC for AoE1 in AoE2 while AoE1 fans are unable to properly play the 'definitive' game they already paid for, and with how basic the original maps are it shouldn't have been very resource intensive for them to throw them together when comparing the level of scripting between original campaigns and even something like the original AoE2 campaigns, let alone the kind of campaigns they regularly make for AoE2 DLC. A few weeks before release they stated in a facebook post (lol) that the original campaigns aren't coming. Brilliant PR move.
Moving on from that I assumed that they would manage to pull off the new campaigns well enough considering the quality of most of the AoE2 DLC campaigns, but after completing the first Sargon mission I don't have any faith in that whatsoever. Units will forget basic movement or attack commands and stand still. Priests will be directly adjacent to injured units and not autoheal them half the time. When you take out an opponent's TC they will start to rebuild it 1 tile away from where it was destroyed then repeat once you target the new TC, which is similar to the AI behavior in AoE2 to begin with but they make so little effort to position the TC safely that its comical for a few seconds before the tedium sets in. All of that and more happened repeatedly in a short starter mission. Once again they have managed to make a less enjoyable and functioning AI compared to a game that is 26 years old.
The worst aspect of the AI is that its hard to tell what is due to the AoE1 implementation and what was already there seeing as the recent patches for the main game have also made the pathfinding/AI significantly worse, with many players frustrated with basic movement commands bugging out that have worked fine for the bulk of AoE2DE's existence.
The handling of this DLC and the game in general post Lords of the West has me convinced that future DLC won't be of any interest to me. It was great while it lasted, but I'm not going to support a company like this and have zero faith in them fixing it.