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It stated that the game is quite time-consuming. Even the tutorial would take several hours... Is that true?
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It's both a tutorial, and an introductory scenario, rolled into one. So you can set it aside, save, and pick it up again.
As for being time-consuming: well, it is a turn-based strategy game. If you don't want something time-consuming, there are plenty of casual games out there. This really isn't the kind of genre to look to for quick sessions.
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RTK is an overblown whale...
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The AI isn't great, but it isn't anywhere near as bad as he makes out. It's actually a lot better than the AI is many of the most popular games we all enjoy. If you play on the harder level, there are several scenarios that are very challenging, especially if you play ironman: no reloading from previous saves when a general gets stolen from under you, or another escapes from prison, or a city mutinies.
And if that's not difficult enough, you can always take the weakest side in a large scenario with many opponents. Even the very best players up on the KOEI site admit to having lost repeatedly with a few of these. Anyone who claims they've easily defeated all the scenarios, on all sides, is fit to be a politician, in my opinion.
Incidentally, the AI was improved in the add-on, but KOEI, in its infinite wisdom, hasn't issued a translation of the Chinese/Japanese add-on (known as PUK) in English for the PC.
As for the game itself, I like it. There's a fair amount of personality to the many characters you can employ, and a great creation system that lets you not only role up new supporting characters but give them individual personalities, goals, family members, enemies, etc. The strategic sub-games of intellectual arguments and horseback battles are a hoot, and the way you handle an empire as it grows, while your enemies grow more determined to destroy you, really adds quite a challenge. Check out
the demo yourself, though it only gives the slightest flavor of the full game.