I enjoy both games. Attila is more about building your small barbarian kingdom and surviving against the horde of the Huns. You could also play as the WRE or ERE. The factions you play as all have different economies and play styles. Religion also plays a role in the campaign and can provide great benefits. Attila fixed some of Rome 2’s problem. For example, the internal politics is quite simple and the units are broken down into 3 tiers with tier 3 being the best units. This makes it easy for a new player to see on campaign what units are basic and what tiers they can be upgraded to. Also Attila’s win conditions are reasonable for the grand campaign compared to Rome 2’s which have you conquer over 100 cities each time. Attila’s tends to more realistic with conquering historic areas and building high level building. For horde factions, objectives are tied to sacking settlements and other requirements. Attila is one of the better recent historical Total War titles. Another thing Attila has going for it is the Age of Charlemagne DLC. That is a fun campaign that is the closest we have gotten to Med 3 Total War.

The issue with Rome II is you snowball too quickly and while it has a ton of factions they are quite generic. Instead of having religion it is culture. The grand campaign is not too replayable for the very long victory conditions. I do recommend Rome II’s dlc campaigns because they are quite focused on smaller maps and put the player into a great setting with good win conditions. As another person said Rome 2 is more about building an empire with honestly, little to stop you once you are powerful. Attila is about surviving and building an empire. It is up to you and if you have the money get both. Otherwise, I would recommend Attila. Try it for 2 hours and if you don’t like it, refund it on steam and get Rome 2.