I played with it for about an hour yesterday. It was enjoyable, but clearly this game requires a lot of time spent playing to get anything done. There's a lot more complexity with management of units, resources, etc., than I remember from earlier games, and I kept losing track of what everyone was doing. Combat is so different, I think it'd take me a long time to get the hang of it, and I'm not too talented with or interested in tactics like that. I had a general feeling of not being entirely sure what was going on most of the time. A lot happened each turn and I couldn't remember all the important information from turn to turn. Which city-state was requesting aid? Do they still need aid ten turns later, which is the minimum amount of time it'll take me to get troops over there? How strong are my troops versus the ones waiting for me? I get a message that a city-state wants me to build a wonder or else they'll stop being my friend. That wonder would take 60 turns to build, and by then they're already long gone. It felt like the game was trying to make a lot of things happen fast, but not letting me react to those things quickly enough.
I'm sure I'd get used to all this if I kept at it a bit more, but it would take a lot of time, and clearly the game takes a lot of time to play in general. Right now I have a pretty limited amount of spare time and a lot of things I need to get done. I also have a few other games that I bought and have hardly played due to lack of time. So my final decision is no, I won't buy this one, even though (despite the difficulties) it was enjoyable. I'll probably play with it a bit more today until the free period ends, then move on.