I just played it. Wow. I am impressed. Visuals, tech, gameplay, everything.
The game does have a learning curve but it's not as steep as all the reviews make it seem. You pick up everything you need to know within the first hour and a half or so. Well, pre-military stuff anyway. I couldn't get into many other sim builders (Civ, Pharaoh, etc.) but I could get into ANNO 1404.
The only complaints I have so far are saving/loading times and how heavy the game can feel at times. I had to scale it down to get it running smoothly. Loading a save can take from 1-2½ minutes, depending on how big the map is, same with loading a new stage. It's not a huge issue, just requires a bit of patience. Autosave was scheduled for every 30 mins and it takes about 15 secs, it can be a bit intrusive since the game just halts while it's saving, so I rescheduled it for every 60 mins.
Other than that I highly recommend it for fans of the genre and anyone new to it, like me!
P.S. Once again, I am REALLY sorry, Que!