I wish I could say the same. While I wanted to enjoy the game profusely (I was actually quite fond of vanilla BE when it first came out), I feel like Rising Tide has spoiled what joy was in it for me. There are a number of problems that I find detract from the experience, such as...
1.) Aquatic cities are a nuisance. I have always preferred standard maps, or massive ones with sparse resources. This is because I hate there being a clusterfuck of cities to micromanage, and do not enjoy having to constantly expand, but instead prefer to settle, consolidate, refine and conquer. With the addition of aquatic cities, the period of expansion in an average game is practically endless, thus eliminating the benefit of conquest except as a victory condition.
2.) Diplomacy is dull. The idea of capital and policies is a fine one, but it has been executed very poorly. Policies are arbitrarily made and cancelled, and do not allow you to engage with other civilizations in any meaningful way. Capital is gained quickly, and becomes useless mid-game once you have established your favorite policies and fully meshed out your personality traits. Gone are the options to demand tribute, request gifts, give ultimatums for military and colonial infringement, and warn others not to attack alien life.
3.) Hybrid affinities are shallow. These seem like something they just tacked o should have either allowed players to use their imaginations with the old setup, or meshed out fully, with their own philosophies and an entire set of graphical modifications. Instead, you now wind up with blends of vague, seemingly conflicting affinities that stick out like a sore thumb and take their toll on immersion.
4.) A certain bug (or "feature"?) While playing as Brasilia, I found myself allied with most of the world's civilizations. After a long spell of peace, one of my allies declared war on another. In previous civilization games, this would simply terminate the alliance/defensive pact for the warring members. Instead, it caused all 6 civilizations to declare war on one another, myself included. Later, it occurred again. And again. And again.
Overall, I feel like this was a rather uninspired expansion. Whereas I felt that there was at least some genuine attempt to recreate the magic of AC in the original BE, whatever the restraints, Rising Tide feels more like a shameless money grub. As such, I think I'll go ahead and add future installments of the Civilization series to my "Molyneux List."