I have to admit, I was skeptical after the reveal trailer. But seeing the extended gameplay, I think the world lightning is nice and makes a huge difference. Fog of War is rendered nicely and feels like true AoE. It also looks like there is enough detail to be appealing but not so much to be a visual overload or unplayable on low-end PCs.
Let’s be real here. Most games today either strive to be “photo-realistic”, like Battlefield or even Company of Heroes, or they are purposely more “cartoon-like”. Age of Empires has never been very photo realistic IMO, even AoE III. I think the problem is, as the 3-D physics and graphics engines become more sophisticated, we expect more realism and it is off-putting for many when the graphic /artistic styles don’t match the level of 3-D detail. However, the RTS gameplay experience can suffer from an overabundance of realistic detail. There is a reason AoE:II has consistently been more popular than AoE:III even though it is 2-D.
Just my two cents (more like 5 cents)