• Morlan's shorts:

Having played only version 2.2 (and onwards) I can't see what the issue was and why people complain about the differences. I suppose it might have to do with getting used to a certain style/system of gameplay which had some significant changes in this last version.
With this version I had a very enjoyable time, the "realtime-with-pause" is a great gameplay style if you're busy and take breaks often, there is a great variety of actions to do, many factions, discoveries-stories-text to read, the game runs well on an older system (win 7), didn't encounter any bugs/issues or slowdowns but my major MAJOR grip is that you have to allow cloud saves to be able to have achievements!. You won't see any achievements on my page because I loath cloud-saves and it's incomprehensible why they paradoxically demand that for achievements when I'm only playing single-player campaigns!
Other than that it's a typical Paradox game behaviour where they start with a main game and bleed your dry with DLCs. What you do is wait a few months after release, get it in a bundle and only grab the extras that you really want. Don't be greedy, be picky..
But it's a yes.

Don't waste more time reading lengthy reviews.. time is of the essence!