I just got my copy of Gal Civ II Gold Edition off Ebay. When I received it, The box was in Russian and had strange graphics.
Yes, you bought a bootleg copy. Sorry, but you won't be able to get updates or use the metaverse unless you purchase a legitimate one.
Bootleg copies are usually pretty obvious, as they generally are some or all of the following:
1) Imported. This is a dead giveaway in the case of GC2 Gold since it's not been released in Europe or Asia yet.
2) Foreign language packaging, usually with no manual. Again a giveaway for same reason as 1).
3) Used, which is just an excuse for the fact that it doesn't include a serial number (even for legitimate used copies though, we can't support them if the serial was already registered by the original owner).
4) Use stock images rather than a photo of the actual merchandise. While some bulk sellers may legitimately use stock photos, if they refuse to give an actual merchandise shot, they probably don't want you to see how shoddy a copy the box is.
Sellers of bootleg software are not likely to cooperate with refund requests, so your only recourse would probably be to report it to ebay, and to try getting something back through them. I use ebay only rarely myself so I'm not sure offhand what their policies are in a case like this. I do report whatever auctions I see whenever I happen by ebay, but unfortunately more of them sprout up all the same and people buy them only to get stuck with an unsupportable pirate copy.
