Age of Wonders III is 50% off this weekend on Steam. Any recommendations?
Personally I considered it worth it when I bought it for full price though others didn't agree quite so much. I'd definitely recommend it at 50% off if you're a fan of the genre.
The main concerns I remember others raising were primarily the AI being a bit weak (and yeah, it is prone to being too passive, and likes to raze its own cities in a retreat if you press on it too hard, along with bad at unit placement when defending cities in tactical combat), and that racial diversity is lacking compared with previous games in the series (fewer races, less differences between the races' units). The latter was partly offset by the introduction of classes, though it's a matter of opinion whether that offset it enough.
Some also criticised the empire building as being a too shallow, but that was never really this series' focus, it's more about the combat (which obviously matters if you prefer empire building gameplay).
They've released a few fairly substantial patches aimed at addressing the concerns - adjusting racial units stats and abilities to make them more distinct, and a large patch went live today that included a lot of AI improvements (though I don't know how successful those were). The first dlc/mini-expansion also launched today, which I imagine is why it's 50% off.