Completely over-rated. If you see no flaws in this game, please play it more than a few minutes.
First of all, there's essentially two games within this game that you can't possibly rate equally if you've got something more than a rock for thinking, because they are worlds apart. I'm not in this review talking about the real-time battle game of M:TW2, except in the following 3 words: It is great. Now, moving on to the other game within this game, the turn based strategic map. (also, the score is adjusted to display what I feel for the turn-based strategic map game part. While some may state this will present a unbalance in the statistic charts for this game here on gamespot, it's just clear that too many have already completely over-rated this game anyway, so the scores are already scewerd.)
Now, what's not to like? Well, for example the fact that by the time you've completed building any building in any city that gives you lesser unrest, the innate unrest of the settlement will have risen to higher than the bonus of the building you just built, so you're just fight a ever-losing battle against angry citizens that wants nothing more than to be angry that you've not built them the latest version of a governor's palace. Well, I could understand that, who would not be unhappy over the local governor NOT having the latest luxuries? Geez. Also, as far as I know, it doesn't take a settlement 2-3 years (4-6 turns) to build your avarage militia building, I mean, they aren't THAT large. Oh, yeah, it might be the fact that ruling lords in medieval times let the workes slack alot. Yup, it wasn't like they drove them as slaves or anything, no siree, in medieval times lords were very, very understanding and good to their benefactors, gladly letting them work at whatever slow pace they chose... Geez. Also, it's very comforting to know that when a city has built a certain wall, there is NO WAY WHATSOEVER to make the city larger and make room for more inhabitants, and yet the population does continue to grow, so soon the squalor and unrest will be immense. Solution? Allow them to rebel and then kill as many of the rebels and citizens as you can while you're reclaiming the city. Yeeeeeeees, because there were SOO many medieval kings who promoted rebellions in his cities just because he couldn't expand them... uh-huh. Another thing that was very common during the medieval times were religious unrest. Even though 100% of the citizens follow your religion, there were always those citizens who believed in other gods who made som unrest... or, no wait... doesn't 100% mean 100%? Confusing... or not. Another problem that medieval kings had, was that if you are the "player", it is okay for any faction to attack you and make any actions against you, break alliances on less than a whim, etc. but between eachother they act like real people should. Also, because of this, when you are aggressive back, YOU (the "player"), are the bad guy and nearly the whole known world will go at great lengths just to killy you... uh-huh. Also, because of this, you reputation cannot, in ANY way, at all, go higher than 'Untrustworthy'. Why, you ask? Uh... well... er... yeah, you are the "player", that says it all!
Yes, that's the "short" of it... or maybe we can short this review even more by just saying: This game is completely retarded. Nowhere is there anything that can be traced by logic or other such things that we daily base out lives on. Oh, yeah, unless you cheat. If you cheat you can actually play this game and have some fun. But, as that isn't a viable part of the game, the game still sucks bigtime.
(yes, there are some typos in my text but sadly I don't care enough to edit them. I would have if the game was good, but not here.)