Recent reviews by The Polar Expression

This wouldn't do nearly as well without the mods, but the sheer modding capability and freedom to do so, so many things which new Total War games completely overlook - which includes fixing bugs via mods, so you can avoid the dozens of issues in games like Atilla and Shogun 2! - makes the game what it is today.
You're unlikely to find a Total War game more enjoyable, varied and strategical than this when you crack into the hundreds of well-detailed intricate, innovative and creative mods this game has gathered over the years. From Third Age to Tamriel to Stainless Steel and more, this game has stood the test of time and the strategy has stood with it too.
And the best part? Newer Total War games have taken little snippets of code - like the garrisons feature offered in just about every overhaul mod, the option to have specific building path choices rather than being able to build everything lazily and unstrategically, and even the idea of entering the fantasy region of games! - and tried converting it into their own games! Except while they were at it CA managed to screw up in its own ways (though you'll never find true flying units in Medieval 2 so there is that).

One minor issue you may find important is that Naval battles aren't nearly as interesting, as you can only auto-resolve. There isn't an option to fight those battles, sadly.
...but the option to play with more than 2 human players on a campaign is arguably worth that cost, as you won't be finding that in other Total War games (it requires a mod - most allow it - for this one, and is a spin-off of a Hot Seat campaign; you'll have to transfer the file over different devices if playing with people on, well, different devices).

Obviously there's various things of worth I didn't mention, but I'd say what I have mentioned is enough if you're already interested in the Total War series. This game just wins out thanks to the modability - oh, and the value for money, when you think of it that way; it has a lot of gameplay *even without the mods* for the price, and the mods just pile that up further.

Warning: This is a lazy review.

Good:
-Replayable if you do not know how to play and decide to learn via playing rather than the tutorial.
-If you can play a full multiplayer match, while all participants know how to play, it should be somewhat enjoyable.
-Large variety of units overall, with just enough and around the right balancing (though Great War Infantry raise the bar suddenly, and missile cruisers make all other ships pointless as long as you just keep one melee to take cities).
-Good variety of leaders.
-Egypt can win you every game if played right with balanced starts since wonders are notably imbalanced (e.g: Skirmish map with a Dominant Terrain and Rivers)(even on multiplayer). (Is this a good thing?)
-Matches don't take that long (This is coming from someone used to Total War campaign times of 60-80 hours with up to 3 hours per turn (if manually doing the battles), though.)(Average game takes around 4 hours, I'd daresay. I'm used to Domination as it's the only somewhat enjoyable victory, though. Science, Diplomacy, Culture and Time may be quicker due to less units to move, or slower due to later eras required. I cannot say.)
-Lots of achievable achievements.
-A good collection of scenarios.
-The rest of the good things.

Bad:
-You're literally only going to ever need to worry about happiness. This is literally the only thing you're fighting against, unless you play on Settler or with a mod that disables it. (This is the case even in Multiplayer, and especially on higher difficulties. You will end up fighting others, but unless either you or them are doing terribly and/or are bad at the game, it will be a permanent stalemate due to equal armies while defenders have an advantage due to things like terrain, visibility and city defense+attack.(Other factors may change such, like how if one has a better ping they have more access to using mounted units to hit and run and ranged units to defend, allowing for whittling down of an army, without allowing the opponent with higher ping to respond.))
-The AI is terrible, since it nearly simply does the same as what they did in previous games before happiness was global, hence every single game you will find most of the AIs unhappy (assuming it hasn't been attacked/hasn't been doing "badly").(This notably applies to certain AI Civlizations, like the Zulus, who not only aggressively settle many cities but also fully conquer and puppet other civilizations, and like Russia, who will settle cities as often and in as high of a quantity as possible.)
-Higher difficulties simply mean more AI cheats (yes, more, the AI cheats even on 'Prince'(Normal difficulty), the difficulty below that, 'Warlord'(Easy difficulty), has no AI cheats yet some player cheats. If you were looking for a balanced match with AIs, look away. Multiplayer is your only option for complete balance. Anyhow, the cheats the AI has on Prince are barely notable, so the Prince level cheat is a matter which simply requires you to be picky for you to care about it.)
-There is little strategy to be had. You are generally doing the same thing every match, with the exception being how many cities you have and where you place them. There are multiple options to be had in research, however the options are not balanced and hence make it nigh upon pointless to vary which order you choose to research. There are also multiple buildings, however again, there is little reason to put any thought into it as some tower over others in terms of priority (e.g: granary > barracks, as you can work more tiles with more citizens and have more production, gold, food, etc, overall, hence a better city in general - e.g2: barracks > walls, as walls barely change your cities defense (around 20%) while a barracks can change the strength of every soldier you build by 15% if on the correct terrain type (and other promotions, of course, but those two are the most common and thus the example), hence making it obvious which is more useful in defense).
-The rest of the bad things.

Anyhow..
In summary: The strategy for this game is absent. The AI for this game is absent. There however are many options to choose from when setting up games, like scenarios, custom battles, a map creator, a workshop, many civilizations, etc, so it can have replayability if you're bored, while playability to begin with even if you're not. I, personally, am very bored.