Hey guys, I'm the Community Manager on this title.
I'd love to chime in and explain a few things here.
Regarding there only being 2 free civs. We're launching with 2 civs, they both have a free to play component and they also have a premium/paid component. These are not the ONLY civs we'll have. We've announced 2 more coming out later this year, the Celts and the Persians. We'll be adding civs to this game for YEARS to come.
Having to pay 102 euros for 6 months of content. This is an option. If you buy the Season Pass bundle, you'll pay once, and receive EVERYTHING we release during that 6 months. This includes all civs we release, all booster packs, and all vanity packs. If you're a player who wants EVERYTHING, this package offers substantial savings. This is not a forced purchase. We're allowing users to purchase only what they want. If a user really only likes Horde Mode style games, they can spend $10 (or their regions pricing) and that can be their ONLY purchase in Age of Empires Online. When you make a single purchase of a Civ, you unlock everything for that civ. The entire tech tree, the advisers, larger warehouses, rare and epic gear, etc. We're not nickle and diming our users.
The online portion: The capitol city is persistent. When you're not online playing, friends can still visit your city and buy from your stores, as well as your city is still producing goods. We aren't charging for online play.
The art style: By changing the art style we were able to lower the requirements needed to run the game. Which means, more people can play it!
It's a free download and free to play. You don't have to buy a civ right off the bat to check the game out. I'd highly suggest you at least try the game before deciding you hate it. Instead of the past where you'd have to pay full retail price for a game, only to find out you dislike it (we've all had that happen), we're letting you check the game out for free. And if you chose to upgrade to a Premium Civ at any point in time, you don't have to start your city over. If you chose not to, you're not out any money.