I think Civ:Revolution is a great take on the classic Civ gameplay model, with things nicely simplified down to make it easy and fun to play on a console. However I think they may have gone too far, especially with the lack of world customisation. After playing quite a few games on my PS3 I started to long for the ability to create a continent for each faction (mainly because I was starting to tire of bumping into the other factions within a few turns!), and I actually ended up purchasing Civ 4 again on Steam (lost original copy) just to get my fix!
Overall though it's a great introduction to the Civ franchise and with a clever patch here and there could be a top class game.