Alright, so here is my take on the game. Spent 50 hours total playtime, and overall I will say there is a lot more positive to say than negative. My campaign is with the Saxons, and besides the prologue with the visigoths they are the only factions I have played with so far.

The prologue did a fairly decent job of explaining new features, and I think the new features are what are attracting a lot of players to Attila. The biggest (not new but finally returning) feature is the family tree. Best variety and options of any Total War game so far. Lots of actions that can be taken, you can once again chose your heir, marry, divorce, adopt, assassinate and more. The down side is that the pace of the game means you may only have a few kings during your playthrough if you are cautious/lucky with your kings. My second king is 75 years old at 453 A.D. and still going.

The units are tiered, which is an interesting change to things. The biggest downside is that as you research and upgrade tiers, you can no longer recruit lower, cheaper tiers in all cases. Now, by the time you have have access to those higher tiers you should be making a higher turn income but other issues compound the frustration of the late game.

If you get too big you become everyones target. Diplomacy is futile and you have to be ready to fight on multiple fronts agaisnt multiple enemies. This is the problem I ran into at least. I took all of britain with the exception of ireland, and had frisia and gothskandia under my control along with part of belgica. and was at war with nearly all surviving factions in europe with the exception of Eastern Roman Empire. At this point, I was having to fight off two and three armies at a time, stuck in cities due to the threats of looting (I couldn't afford to lose income per turn and repair) and basically had to keep my armies static to defend rather then expand.

Expansion slows down as the game goes on (at least in this playthrough) over 60% of the map was desolate by 453 AD. and the price to recolonize was extreme. Add to that the fact that by 453 AD the fertility across 80% of the map was at the lowest point (a few southerly provines were meager, the second lowest fertility). Even though by this time my building tiers and bonuses for tech levels had increased my income, higher unit upkeep and longer winter attrition periods meant I was still only looking at an average of 1500-2000 income per turn.

I never migrated, or abandoned any settlements so I don't have much to say about horde mechanics at this point but i plan the next play through to be the visigoths or alans.

I think in general both commander abilities and agent actions have been nerfed. No longer can you expect a half dozen abilities per general, nor can you plan on destroying enemy armies through a blitz of spies poisoning every cup, goatskin, dewdrop of water in the vicinity. But Frank-ly (har har) that's an improvement in regard to realism over Rome II.

The biggest negatives i found with Attila are with the endgame. You're provinces will be infertile, raging with epidemics, and if you're large enough, assaulted on all sides. But obviously that was CA's goal. War, Death, Famine, and Pestilence (did I miss someone? Groucho, or perhaps Shemp?) And while it is all in the spirit of apocolpyse, it makes for an extremely frustrating situation. Even achieving the minor victory condition is 14 settlements away. There aren't even 14 undesolate settlements in europe (not counting the ones I own). So I have two options. Hoard wealth at a meager rate and colonize or haphazardly capture the settlements that remain.

In hindsight i would have to say I should have abandoned the mainland, captured all of britain, then slowly recolonized and conquer, either through gaul or skandinavia to use the geography to help keep from overextending my territory. I would say I should have expanded faster but Im not sure that is wise given the fact of the major diplomatic penalities and inevitable war with every other damn faction in spitting distance (and then some. Minding my own business with no settlement south of my starting saxon capital and Hispania and Africa join in the fight against me)

I'm looking forwards to mods, especially unit additions and an increase in turns per year. Also, some changes to make raiding armies more feasible (less attrition, increase to the bonus of adding warriors after victory)

Attila is definitely more satisfying at its start than Rome II. Inevitable DLC will add more units, factions, blood (yeah, seriously,it is ridiculous they are going to make us pay for it again)

My deepest desire? Take a note from paradox, give me an extension of the timeline, add events with it. Attila should see a "rise of islam" expansion, take us into the crowning of Charlemagne, and pave the way for Medieval III (or whatever the heck they are going to call it)