CSA a review in perspective:
Most of the reviews and comments of others have been fairly positive about this game and so, it seemed like a worthy purchase. My Family and I have played several games now, and I think other potential buyers need to put some perspective into their choices. Since other fine reviews have illustrated the mechanics and premise of the game well, I will refer to them without excessive detail.

Overview:
Players compete against each other to build various aspects of Cleopatra's palace and are rewarded for their work. There is incentive to work quickly, both to build key components and because you are reimbursed better for getting multiple projects done together. In order to build quickly, it is nearly impossible to keep your nose clean, and players are forced to cut corners and deal with shady characters just to stay competitive. While the race to accumulate the most cash is central to many games, the more often you frequent the underbelly of society the more corrupt you become. In the end no matter how wealthy you have become, if you are the most corrupt, you are also the biggest loser and will accordingly be sacrificed to the children of the crocodile God.

The game will support 2-5 players, with perhaps 4 being optimal. I have not played the game with 5 but even with 4 it feels as if too much can happen before it is your turn again. Playing with 3 works well, but 2 would seem to make it too easy to keep track of the other players corruption and wealth.

This game has a good family appeal to it, in that kids who can count to 15 and can take turns probably can join the game without a lot of help.
The decisions can have elements of planning to them, but frequently your options are relatively limited and straight foward.
Turns consist of either gathering resources or building. At it's heart, it is a resource management game. There is some, but minimal player interaction, so it is hard to "gang up" on the leader or "punish" someone for being mean to you, yesterday.

Mechanics:
An interesting mechanic are the shuffled resource/market cards so that some are visible and others are hidden. In our games, only near the end of the game does it seem to matter much if they are hidden. Through most of the game there is little disincentive to accidently get a "bad" card. While it is occassionally helpful to know that you are getting the one or two cards you need. More often than not, players just take the largest pile, regardless of whether cards are face up or face down. So while the twist is a nice touch, it doesn't do enough to influence choices in my opinion.
The other interesting mechanic is the offering to the high priest to get rid corruption. After certain projects are completed, dice are rolled to determine if the high priest will request an offering to appease the Gods. Players secretly make offerings and the most generous donation will have some corruption absolved. All others in their stinginess, are punished with accumulating more corruption. Since managing corruption is perhaps the major concern in the game, you would think that this mechanic would have a more central role. However because only one face of the 5 dice accumulate to trigger this event, and all 5 symbols must show, and blank dice are only rolled five times in the whole game, it does not happen very often. In fact, in the several games that we have played it has not happened once yet!! We are to the point of considering a house rule to change the way this is decided so that it can take a more prominent place in the game, as it should.

Components:
A lot has been said about the quality of the game components and undoubtedly many have been tempted or will be tempted to buy the game on this alone. While I admit, that the artwork throughout is of a high caliber and the Talents (money), corruption, and merchant vessel counters are on nice durable heavy stock. I have some reservations. It bothers me that the game box itself becomes part of the game. Boxes in general have always been prone to abuse and damage. Many popular games have had their outer protections shredded to scrap just in pulling them out and storing them over and over again. Making the box a part of the board is inviting a acceleration of this process. Also, many have commented on the lavish 3D architectural pieces of the game. This needs some perspective as well. If you are accustomed to games with wood cubes for people, armies, buildings etc. then yes, these bits do shine and take a giant step foward. If however, you enjoy miniature games where the devil is in the detail, you are likely to be disappointed. Some reviews have indicated that the bits alone could be substituted for other table top games. At best they would make mediocore scenery pieces in that capacity. I agree, they are nice elements to a market/production game, but they don't have the "WOW" and "AWE" factor for me, that I have been led to believe by other commentors. They certainly could be spiced up a little with a bit of work, but I guess it depends on what you are used to. Overall the effect is nice, even the players individual corruption pyramids scatterd on the table give a sense of a grander dessert vista. Lastly I would have liked to see Cleo herself and the statues of Annubus have a little more size or glitz to them.

Flow:
Overall, the rules are easy to understand and quick to digest. Unfamiliar players can be taught the game relatively quickly with a shallow learning curve. There are not many decisions to slow the game and so turns happen fairly quickly keeping everyone involved at a regular frequency. While some tactics and fore thought will influence the game, frequently the luck of the card draw will influence what you can or cant do. I would say the game depends fairly evenly on luck and strategy maybe tipping over more into the luck category. It certainly could not be considered a deep or heavy strategy game.

Some Strategy tips:
Don't be afraid of corruption, just manage it well. The only way you can rely on reducing your corruption is with sanctuaries. You must plan on getting one or both of your statues of Annubis in play. Since you can only build a maximum of 2 sanctuaries, you should plan on getting at LEAST 5 spaces (corruption forgiveness) from them. The size of your sanctuary is more important than how many shrubs it covers!!
You are almost always better off trying to build two or three projects at a time rather than one, unless you are aiming for a big ticket piece that needs to get built before someone else beats you to it.
As the game gets close to the end, make sure you can bring your hand over 10 cards, so that for 1 corruption token, you can discard all the corrrupt cards in your hand that will count against you in the final scoring.
If you can't get discard these cards, do not be afraid to use them, since they will count against you whether you use them or not.

What I liked:
The visual appeal is nice but not outstanding
It appeals to younger players
It plays quickly
It is easy to teach
It is a reasonable gateway type or family game

What I disliked:
After the hype, the pieces left me a little high and dry.
I am worried about using/abusing the box in game play
The offering to the high priest should be more integral to the game
Not enough choices with serious consequences for my taste
Unlike many games, the more it is played the less I want to play it again.

Overall:
While others obviously won't agree, I don't think Cleopatra and the Society of Architects lives up to it hype. It uses it's theme to good advantage. It takes a step up in componentry, from many games, but is not awe inspiring in itself. It has some interesting mechanics which don't quite influence the game as much as they should, and therefore end up feeling like they are for show or flavor, or perhaps they did not put enough effort into making them meaningful to the game. It is a light gateway/family type game. Am I glad I bought it? Yes, it fills a nice niche in our home. Would I myself, be sad, if it didn't get played for another year or two? No, not really. After, our first play, I had rated it a 7, today I would call it more a 6.