The Settlers: New Allies Review (L'zu)
Far as the Settlers series goes, this must be the worst. I would rank it almost at level with the browser game (might be even worse than that). There are very few elements left from the original game which is a real shame. Building roads is pretty much the only aspect from the Settlers series, other than that it's just your everyday below average strategy game.
Far as the gameplay goes, the mechanics are biggest problem. This mainly concerns the logistics (I mean what else is there to really screw up in a game like this). For example the settlers move items from one storage to another before delivering them to their destination. And while doing so, they pass the destination building. So basically they transport the item pass the destination to another warehouse before another settler can bring it to where its needed. There are also times (quite often) when the settlers start to move items from one warehouse to another (like almost all of a certain item stack) even without the first warehouse being full. And once they arrive at the destination warehouse, they start moving them back to the first one. Not only is this annoying, but it really blocks the roads slowing everything down. And these are just few examples of many. Also moving the troops can be real pain. If you give your troops a new order, they will stop for a second or two before taking any action. This can be costly especially in battles as it gives the opponent a small window (1-2 seconds) where you deal no damage.
The story in the campaign is like it was written by an AI, it's really bad and there are so many repetitions that it's almost amusing, Also the cut scenes are terrible in graphics, voice acting and dialog. And the missions are pretty straight forward and extremely easy. You build a tower or two to defend (just so that you don't have to bother with defence), pump up your research, build half decent size army and just run over the enemy. The good news though is that the missions are mostly just waiting for research etc. to finish, so you can play while working, or doing something else actually useful.
I'll add to this that they have added one nice feature, which are the hardcore mission under skirmishes. However ubisoft being what it is. They don't seem to refresh as they are supposed. They have now been stuck on the same missions for a week with the timer for refresh being at 0. And the kicker is that if you actually go to the hardcore missions, the whole skirmish selection gets frozen. In other words, you can't select any other skirmish game mode anymore.