I played at release and haven’t followed it since then. At the time, I remember it being highly criticized and not popular with the community. It has been over a decade, and I could be misremembering.

Are we pretending that Age of Empires Online never existed?

Agreed. The first few episodes were interesting because there were actually some stakes and conflicts. The repeated shot of the window sill with leaves on it in every episode also made me irrationally annoyed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyone else having issues with the subtitles appearing way before any dialog occurs?

Bible Black may be worth checking out.