Hey Quickfire, good review there..but since i've played the game myself and am a strategy freak, i'll give it a bit better rating of 3.5 out of five..i know its not perfect, the railroad tycoon 3 is much better, but the game is quiet addictive and needs proper strategy in the beginning to amass wealth to fuel further expansion and in the later stages to avoid being bought off..

The graphics are good as far as sid meier's other games like civ4 go..though not in the league of aoe3 for sure..but it pretty much turns out to be a good visual experience..
Only problem was tht this game is a big resource hog.. By the last few years, when u have an expansive rail empire with 20-30 trains chugging around, the game uses up all the ram available..happened to my older p4 3 ghz ht,p4p800 dlx, 1 gb ram system..i had a radeon 9600pro 256 mb agp card..
after finishing the game, the computer wud completely come to a stand still..it'll take considerable time to open windows and apps..so a reboot was necessary after every game session..
But i dont know why i kept going back to the game after all these limitations..
overall a good immersive game..but i'll prefer railroad tycoon 3 if they were ever compared...