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I wrote a paper on my initial reaction to the book, and after finishing it, I think my intuition was right. Here it is (I think I'm pretty harsh in this review--I don't think the book is "one-star bad" though):

"A brief Google search of Niall Ferguson provides an ocean of information on him and his political leanings. Without a doubt, the most controversial is his defense of British Imperialism. After reading the introduction and first chapter of his book, “Empire,�� it becomes clear why he is a target for so much criticism. Although one cannot form elaborate and sophisticated argumentation regarding Ferguson’s pro-British principles, my initial knee-jerk reactions are not too pleasant.
Ferguson ends the introduction saying, 'The question is not whether British imperialism was without blemish. It was not. The question is whether there could have been a less bloody path to modernity.' This loaded statement reveals a lot about Ferguson. First, it shows that he’s particularly interested in marginalizing and dismissing the harm that the British Empire caused to millions of people. Secondly, it shows that he wants to emphasize the good that the Empire caused—even if it is unjustified. And finally, it shows that he has a preoccuption with modernity as the West defines it.
This concern with modernity is shown further in the opening chapter to the book. Ferguson views history, and in this case British history, from a liberal or a modernist perspective. He’s certainly not a political economist. He tells the story with the major, wealthy players in mind (the British, the Dutch, and the French) and rarely discusses the colonized, so to speak. He’s very concerned with talking about the ‘metropole�� and not the ‘periphery.�� He does not question the actions of the British when they were pirates, monopolists, or conquerors. He tells the story as if Britain was some disadvantaged underdog in international affairs and they pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and then rained grace upon the chaotic and anarchic Indian people. The imagery he uses makes it seem like, in a sense, Britain was a victim of the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the French.
When there is a nation being colonized and taken advantage of (in this case, India), the least he could do is devote more than a couple paragraphs to the people of that nation and their struggle. Without a doubt, Ferguson knows British history well. But when one reads his version of the story and contrasts it with an alternative history book, the difference between a modernist and a political economist becomes very clear. And it also becomes clear that the world may not need another modernist historian like Niall Ferguson."