The game has a lot of problems. Only one of them actually matters. Never support always online DRM for a single player game. Lots of people cannot play their single player game because of this and gamers need to do everything they can to stop developers from including it. Do you still play SimCity 4? Good luck playing this game in 10 years. The servers will probably be down then and you'll be locked out of your single player game. SINGLE PLAYER!… Expand

It may be looked down upon to use this as a megaphone to shout through but the fact is that people need to see this, that NO-ONE should EVER support always online DRM for a single player game, on my partners 2nd attempt to play this game, she was told the servers were at full capacity and could not play until 235 minutes had elapsed. There are a staggering amount of other problems, such as the save states being tied to client-side servers, so that once EA decides this game is finished so is your progress and your ability to play it, forever. Not only that but, as probably said before, this game is on Origin only, so you must install this malicious, unoptimized, buggy front-end to just begin to play the game.
Regardless of how the game plays as a Simulator, or whether or not it is improved upon it's predecessors, these issues need to not just ironed out, but abolished completely and utterly. The business practices being executed here are absolutely disgusting and should not be tolerated, at all.… Expand

BEWARE: Forced online DRM, will you be playing this 10 years down the track like previous Sim Cities? No, you wont. And they want this, so you buy the next one. Servers go down? Well screw you, EA already has your money. DLC available from release, server side save-games. I repeat, FORCED ONLINE DRM Also, server queues at launch. Thanks for destroying video gaming and my most treasured franchise.

This is an $80 facebook game. This origin (spyware) dumbed down piece of garbage, not only costs $80 for the full game (any lesser version witholds ingame content), but comes intact with intrusive, always-online DRM. Many people, even reviewers, were unable to access their games or load old saves because this. As a consumer, we should have a zero-tolerance for this sort of practice and boycott any game which is essentially an $80 rental. As to the content of the game, the city plots are abysmal in size, deals with neighboring cities is done automatically, connections with other cities (highways and rails) is done automatically, and much content like subway stations have been cut. The overall nature of the game is so limited that it when taken into context with it's social gaming aspects, you have to conclude that would be better fit for a facebook or iphone game.… Expand

Always online DRM, smaller, non-connected cities due to engine limitations, DAY 0 DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT, poor customer service and delivery of product (waited almost an hour to connect to my single player game), and a swath of simplifications in the gameplay that ruins it for a SC veteran like myself.

Don't bother to get this game. Save some money and buy Sim City 4, or Sim City 2000. You can play them OFFLINE as well.… Expand

The critic reviews are undeniable proof of "gaming journalism" being rotten to the core. This is the exact same game as SimCity Social, except you have to pay $80 before you're allowed to start paying for extras.

The gameplay elements are what is expected of a SimCity game, however innovation outside bus stops and the moods of the citizens (along with other The Sims features) do not exist. It's sad to realize that many people are okay with having extremely small plots of land (2x2 km), far smaller than any previous SimCity game, the reason why it's tolerated? Fanboyism? The ridiculous notion that the game should be played by connecting 5 plots to each other on one area (going to a different plot will pause all the others, that doesn't seem very "connected"). I don't care for excuses like "Oh, but it will cause graphical bugs", am I supposed to give them sympathy for incompetence?

Outside the game. I hope everyone enjoys a game which has always been a single player game, now turned in to an always-online internet required with multi player features... such as having friends in the same region work on their own cities, wow thanks for adding that, it wasn't excuse to justify recent EA policies against piracy which only hurts actual customers and delays a cracked version by a few days? Maybe less? Well, I bought this for only $40 on a sale, refunding it already and uninstalled Origin. You've ruined the SimCity series and you've corrupted Maxis, just like every other previous game developing company. Go bankrupt already, EA.… Expand

Played this game for 6 hours. DO NOT BUY IT. I got disconnected from the server 3 times...you cannot save your own game! So there is no more let me test and reload if it doesn't work. I started over at least 10 times while getting used to some of the features. The city size is just unacceptable. Its not a city AT ALL...More like a village. You will fill it up in an hour. I'm already bored with the game. I won't even get into the always on drm...its a terrible move IMO...but in addition to that the game is not worth the money. I gave it a 3 because some of the new features are neat and useful but its they aren't enough to save the experience. Buy tomb raider instead.… Expand

While it might be a good game, the always online DRM for single player is an insult to the player base (another one of a long series of insults from EA to their customers), and it's absolutely unacceptable. It seems EA didn't learn anything from Ubisoft's DRM failure...

Perhaps because most cannot get on the servers to play. A complete fail from EA once again, I will not be giving Maxis my money again EA can suck my

Unable to play due to server at capacity. In a single-player game. This is ridiculous. Simplified gameplay that does not provide as deep an experience as any of the previous SimCity games. While I'm sure that the server errors will be ironed out over time, the simplified gameplay will not.

Map is too small very too small. This game is only game's marketing that's all Price, dlc it's a joke from EA. I hope people don't buy this game now.

All the 10 positive reviewers are complete morons. Spouting rubbish to try and defend this game. My favourite so far was, "There's a reason why it's sitting at 91% from the critics right now" Jaylenko Do I need to point you in the direction of; MASS EFFECT 3, DIABLO 3, COD:MW2&3, COD:BOPS1&2 ETC ETC to make you realise just how stupid that kind of statement is? These are all prime examples of games that were complete and utter blunders, had next to no innovation in just about any aspect of their game and yet reviewers gave them all extremely favourable reviews. It would almost lead someone to believe that EA/Activision are blackmailing Reviewers, or Buying them out, telling them they won't give them games pre-release or bribing them so they get a good review. Honestly if anyone ACTUALLY believes any kind of Big Gaming review websites these days, they're a complete moron. Now onto these same people trying to defend Always Online DRM, you can't defend it, PERIOD. It's a cheap and dirty practice that holds no place in the gaming world. What happens when you grab your Laptop and go somewhere that doesn't have internet access? What happens to the people with bad connections? What happens to your game when the servers crash? What happens when they do maintenance and you can't play for hours? What happens when the Cloud Saves glitch and you have to roll back your town (Which btw has already happened to people)? Honestly the problems with always online DRM is endless and serves no place in Gaming. Have a Singleplayer version of the game which can be accessed without Origin or can be accessed from a "Origin Offline Mode (Where you don't need to log in Like you can do in Steam)" and then have a Multiplayer version, then people get to choose which they prefer and you can do make changes to the different versions of the game without effecting the other. It's a disgusting practice by EA (And Blizzard for that matter with D3) and if you are enabling this kind of crap by buying these companies games then you are part of the Cancer that is slowly destroying gaming. I suppose I should talk about the game, well it doesn't come out till the 7th in Australia and I wasn't going to buy it anyway, I've boycotted all EA Products. But there's streams going on and Videos all over the net showcasing the gameplay (In great detail mind you since Press had the game for a solid week or so pre-release and made tons and tons of cities). And they all agree it's good, but not great. I only gave the game a 2 because morons are giving this 10 to try and counter-balance the 0's, and whilst I think the 0's are taking things a little to far, low scores have to be given to balance. Frankly with none of this always online rubbish, bigger build plots and less focus on Multiplayer, I'd say this game could definitely be a Solid 7-8/10. In it's current state, but without Always Online DRM probably a 5/10 is an honest Score. But sadly with the Always online BS in place, I think the 3-4/10 mark is spot on where this game deserves to be.… Expand

BEWARE: Forced online DRM, will you be playing this 10 years down the track like previous Sim Cities? No, you wont. And they want this, so you buy the next one. Servers go down? Well screw you, EA already has your money. DLC available from release, server side save-games. I repeat, FORCED ONLINE DRM Also, server queues at launch. Thanks for destroying video gaming and my most treasured franchise.

EA once again ruins a beloved franchise by trying to milk it for every cent it's worth. Rather than building on old concepts and introducing new fun elements for the player to experience, Sim City waters down the gameplay of its predecessors under the guise of "streamlined gameplay", and introduces mandatory mechanics that require the player to either have the assistance of other players online, or to manage multiple cities as if the player was playing with others. Gameplay has been stripped down to the bare minimum, and city sizes have NEVER been smaller in a Sim City game. This leads to a fairly short few hours of tedious zoning(which has also been "streamlined" in such a way that the player is hardly even doing anything) and watching as you very quickly hit the strict city limits. Past this point the player can attempt to make their city more dense and profitable, but it only takes a couple of hours after reaching the city size limit to do this. As far as the single player goes, that's it. Every playthrough, every city, will be exactly the same.

The one differentiating factor in this version of SimCity is that EA has managed to shoehorn in multiplayer mechanics to justify invasive DRM. So while you're building your city that will be nearly identical to every other player's and even your own subsequent cities, you can trade resources between other players in your 'region' and work towards a common goal of a grand work resting just outside of your city limits. Building this grand work is a very simple task, you need resources, you tell your city to siphon resources into the project, that's it. You're not actively doing anything at all to construct this project, you just click a button, and wait. Now here's the kicker about these multiplayer features, you MUST participate. Sim City will not start without an active internet connection, once you've made it past that part it's very likely you'll be waiting in a rather long queue to be allowed access to the game. The player can start a region and set it to private, meaning only those invited or the players themselves can join the game and make a city. Effectively making it a single player experience, but the player still has to be connected to the internet to play for some unknown reason, as well as having to wait in the queue to access their single player experience. Fortunately due to the lack of variety in Sim City's content, I'm relatively sure the queues won't last long.

In summary, this is a poor quality cash-in from a company willing to do whatever it takes to squeeze a little bit more money out of a popular franchise. I give Sim City a 0 for the simple fact that while you may be able to have a minuscule amount of fun making your first City, you could very easily get an earlier installment in the series, and have more fun for longer, at a cheaper price, wherever you are regardless of whether there's a nearby internet connection, without having to wait in a queue a couple thousand people long. There is absolutely no value in owning this game.… Expand

Always on single player... almost unbelievable! Why do companies insist on trying to tackle piracy with a nuclear bomb, when pirates get a better gaming experience in the end, and legitimate customers are left with a horrible one?

Another EA train wreck

This game is a 10 out of then, if not for: -micro-transactions -very small city size -always on DRM (on a single-player game) -multiplayer feels forced down you throat

and worst, you CAN'T PLAY the f***ing game because the servers are busy.

oh, and just to make matters worse it forces you to use Origin.

Seriously EA, rethink you business strategy.

City size is painfully bad. If you enjoyed creating metropolis sized cities then you will be very disappointed. To give you a rough idea, the size of a city in SimCity is 2 km x 2 km; 4 km^2. That is about the size of a city block. If you traveled at 50 km/h (around about 30 mph) you would get from one side of the city to the other in about 2 minutes 24 seconds (even if your journey was doubled because of traffic, that is still only 5 minutes). The "city" size really is that bad.… Expand

I won't even start on the mandatory online component/DRM that stuff is bad enough but what really bothers me are the tiny map sizes. Who at Maxis/EA possibly thought that would be a good idea? People said it's a limit of the beta version, but now the full game is just like that. This is NOT SimCity. This is SimVillage.

Always-online DRM, which depends on unreliable EA servers; overly simplified gameplay (to the point where underground was removed completely); city size is small; zoning is faulty and reduced (no farms and such)

Its a major drawback when you cant actually play a game you purchase. Constant server issues and in-game glitches make this a game we all should have avoided. Governments should legislate against gaming companies which continue to release games unfinished or so poorly supported Don't buy it until you are given guarantees that it will work or that they are discontinuing DRM

Great game, but the fact that you can't play it on the go, that the city sizes are so small, and that you have no save/load function really breaks the game for me.

1. I am dishearted by the fact that a singleplayer game is not avalible to play unless you are always online. I like playing games on the go, and Simcity 4 is one of the games that I enjoy a lot when commuting or relaxing in the park. Also, I fear for the day that EA want to cash in on a new version of Simcity, and closes the Simcity 2013 servers efficiently deleting my creative work.

2. This is not Simcity, it's Sim neighborhood. You have no room to expand or create experimental designs, because the city area is so cramped together that you will struggle to stay afloat without utilizing the area most efficiently. There is no possibility to create a huge buzzing metropolis, or vast rural farm areas firstly the city plots are too small, but they are also spread apart with a green blanket separating the individual city sites. On top of this, the cities are perfectly squared, meaning that the borders between city and "country side" looks very unappealing from an aesthetic point of view.

3. Lastly, there is no possibility to save a game, try out a strategy, and load in case everything crashed and burned. Your city becomes very costly. Imagine it like playing World of Warcraft where you lose your gear if you die.It might give some different gameplay aspects, but it hinders free creative play. The cheat-mode "sandbox" mode might change that, since you can unlock everything and try out to your hearts content, but there is still no save/load function, meaning that the city I spent 3 hours to build up could be 3 hours wasted if I want to try out how disasters inflict the local fire fighters.

All in all; this game has so much potential, but it is lost in the sea of terrible design ideas that changes the feel from the epic of simcity 4, towards the short story of farmville.

I could manage the EA-enforced always online DRM, and I understand that multiplayer gaming is the buzz-word that makes investors wet their pants but removing the essential parts of what made simcity great is stupid. The ability to build cities that in size and stature looks like New York, Shanghai or Tokyo, the ability to try out different strategies with the same city, and see which pans out and the ability to still play this game in 20 years. All of this could be included in a proper sandbox mode, I hope it will be.… Expand

Unable to play due to server at capacity. In a single-player game. This is ridiculous. Simplified gameplay that does not provide as deep an experience as any of the previous SimCity games. While I'm sure that the server errors will be ironed out over time, the simplified gameplay will not

I'll give it a 1 for pretty graphics. This game features no local save mechanism, forced connectivity to unstable servers, lack of basic infrastructure options (no subways), no custom region generations, and finally embarrassingly small map sizes. EA has ruined yet another great franchise, and much like Command Conquer before it, Sim City has been dumbed down and had all the intriguing parts ripped out of it.… Expand

So I bought this after playing and loving Simcity 3000 and Simcity 4, enjoying Simcity 4 even today, 10 years after its original release. I was hesitant about buying this, but the Glassbox engine and a few gameplay mechanic improvements were enough to make me plop down the $60 entry fee.
Whoops, Origin is required, and you are always required to be online while playing the game. After waiting a good 40 minutes for EA's servers to let me into a single player game, I started playing a bit. Except my internet dropped out for a few minutes without my knowing until the game kicked me out for being offline. To EA's credit, it didn't make me lose my save, much. I still lost about 10 minutes of progress.

Okay, so second try. I spent another hour logging in because the servers were getting pounded again. I decide to jump into the deep end by making the biggest city size they had available. I had to check two times to make sure that it was the biggest city size, because it was absolutely tiny. SC3KU's medium size was a bit bigger than this. So that's an actual city with suburbs gone out the window, and I resigned myself to making towns and nothing more.

So when playing, I noticed another thing. Power and water mechanics are vastly simplified. Not streamlined, simplified. Of the vein "make a few buildings at the town edge and forget about it" sense, easily funded by pitiful money management. You can't even make water pipes or power lines anymore, removing any of the challenge in getting that infrastructure up. Sewage would be a neat addition too, but it's still largely useless.

Then comes the zoning, where you zone different densities by... making different road sizes. You absolutely cannot have high-density buildings touching streets, so you have to build avenues all over the place to get high density buildings, largely unutilized since the "individually simulated" citizens love to funnel into a single avenue regardless of just how gridded your city is. In addition, industry and commercial buildings all have childish, enormous, uncreative names plastered on billboards seen from space. It was a bit charming at first, but seeing your entire industrial core covered in "DIRTY INDUSTRY" billboards gets old fast.

The difficulty itself is awful. I could easily get a full-sized city up and running within an hour or two, never once going into the red. Monetary concerns are gone out the window unless an infrequent and easily-managed disaster strikes, and the only difficulty in this game has to do with somehow utilizing all of your meager amounts of land.

Which leads me to another thing. Yes, roads can be curved now, but lots still follow rectangular grids. There is tons of technology these days that allows for curved and unequal lots, including in competitors like Synekism, Introversion's city generator, or even Shamus Young's city generator. However, since EA is still somehow stuck in the past, any curved roads end up wasting massive amounts of space due to lots always being rectangular. Areas inscribed by curved roads end up wasting up to around two thirds of their area. Even when you're not using curved roads, it seems the snap-to-right-angles option always wastes space due to a lack of visible grid, but the in-game adherence to a grid system. It wastes a bunch of space in the areas next to lots. This is horrible when your city size is already at a minimum.

Finally, we come to the entire region view and multiplayer aspect of the game. The region system as set up is extremely visually jarring. There is a lot of wasted space and it results in two massive high-density cities being next door to each other but having absolutely no connections to each other aside from a meager, meandering highway. Then you have the myriad of idiots who just build cities in the shape of phalluses, ruining your experience anyways. Then, you're forced to play in a multiplayer region if you want the full experience of the singleplayer game, namely having all those imports and exports. However, all the cities next to you also move pollution to and fro. So there's always that guy who picks an upwind position and builds nothing but coal factories and industry, filling everyone else's cities with stifling pollution and preventing any meaningful progression. "So just play with friends in your own region" you say, well I'm sorry to say that I'm the only idiot dumb enough to buy this awful game.

This is not a SimCity game in any sense except name only. This is just SimTown with awful design decisions and a clear plan to have loads of microtransactions.
Save your money and don't buy this game until it hits the $5 bargain bin. Hope that EA doesn't shut down the servers by that time.… Expand

This is not Sim City. With the tiny land size it should have been called 'Sim-Town'. You are set in a region, where you either have to personally manage several 'towns' and specialize them towards a regional goal. If you choose to play with other people, you better hope they are on board with the common goal or they can basically contribute nothing. On top of the obvious goal of monetizing the game with micro transactions over it's lifetime, the 'always on' internet requirement... this feels more like an iPad game than a PC game. Shame on the review sites for lowering there expectations of PC games to that of mobile gaming standards.… Expand

The critic reviews are undeniable proof of "gaming journalism" being rotten to the core. This is the exact same game as SimCity Social, except you have to pay $80 before you're allowed to start paying for extras.

EA Origin Required, Always on DRM, Queue to play a single player game, launch day striped out DLC, small cities, dumbed down. 1 step forward in graphics, 2 steps backwards in everything else. EA, been treating games as walking wallets since '82

As if the always-online DRM wasn't enough, there was a queue to play single player. This is a disgrace to the SimCity franchise. The city size is a joke, probably will be DLC to get more land to build on. Don't buy this trash.

Origin only. Day one on disc DLC. Micro-transactions on a paid game. Forced always online DRM. You're the most hated company in the industry for a reason EA.

EA is a business that seems to want to destroy its own business. Which other games publisher (except Ubisoft) has such a perfect ability of smelling out what their customers like and then going and doing the EXACT opposite. What other company is as loathed as EA, in an industry where the customers actually want to love them but can't???? Obsessed with their need for Origins to be successful, obsessed about piracy, which is irrelevant in a world where the number of happy paying customers is booming, obsessed about getting as much blood from a stone as they can with DLC and micro-transactions, EA corporate apparently spends zero time thinking about games, the gamer of the gaming experience. EA seems to be rendered insane by its own greed. It has a genius for destroying games and the fun of gaming. And by all appearances there is no one with any power or control in EA who actually CARES about this either. Look at the millions and millions they blow on advertising! Look at the way gameplay and game fun and game design considerations stagnate or go backwards and get worse! What's wrong with this company? Why are the fools crashing the ships into the rocks NOT getting sacked? The answer can only be that the rot is coming from the very top. It's the EA executives who are making this company a joke. These are obviously men with big egos who never actually play games, and feel an innate contempt for gamers, indeed for games. Gamers should seriously boycott the products of this company, because it's evident from the long string of ruined franchises and studios EA has destroyed in the past 2 years that this company represents a DISEASED corporate culture that will obviously continue so long as the corporate machine is making revenue. Until EA starts taking significant financial losses on their horribly skewed 'games' they have no real reason to change what they are doing. This game is a horrible warning sign of how EA hopes to suck gamers into a DLC-addled, micro-transaction infested, pay-to-play, pay to win, charge by the month toll booth on our lives. They have so much contempt for games and gamers that they even try to chain us to their machine with BAD games. Like we are DUMB enough to allow it. The answer is to say NO. Don't buy their games. Score bomb their games. Don't support these people. EVER. Buy from companies with a better philosphy and with more love for the art and fun that represent gaming at its best. Starve the beast. EA is truly, really, deeply SICK. The shareholders need to replace the entire executive of the business with people who actually, know, love, understand and live for making good games. A company with the financial resources to be an industry leader should be an industry leader. Right now they are wasting and losing billions in potential revenue. They are not only losing-out in terms of game design, creativity and popularity, they are missing BILLIONS in revenue. They are a bad publisher and a BAD business model. Dozens of corporate shills in suits with no understanding of games, gaming or gamers need to be permanently retired, starting with ALL their present executives. A Sim City in 2013 should have been a blow-your mind awesome experience not only in the dimensions of cartoon world creation, but also in hyper-real SERIOUS civic engineering. It could have and should have been not only a toy, but a platform that could be used by architects and engineers to mock up real-world projects. Instead of investing in a state of the art engine however, EA blew its budget on hookers and blow again: AS ALWAYS: giving us a sad reboot of a 1997 experience on the back of a vast, wasted advertising budget. Casuals don't care and will get their kicks elsewhere. The hardcore knowingly laugh. Why do these fools make games for 12 year old, and hope to use DLC and microtransactions to get kids to hit their folks with the credit card? Does no-one with authority in EA have the slightest interest in ACTUALLY MAKING GOOD STATE OF THE ART SOFTWARE? If they stopped trying so hard to work angles with DLC and such and just made plain awesome games they would double their profits in 12 months and start to regain some of the good will they have so steadily squandered in the past three years! SACK the present boss and reset your aggenda EA!… Expand

All i have to say is THERE IS NO SAVE SYSTEM Wtf No even in Single player mode!
ITS AN MMO with Private island and a cheat mode...

60 euros for that just LOL

Send EA a strong message and do not buy this game. Always online for a single player experience is a big up yours to you as the customer. Server issues combined with the fact that they can shut it down at any time should set of alarm bells.

I dont like but i could even overlook all the issues with DRM, even accept that the game could be "constantly" paid by microtransactions, and the lack of real single, offline playing. But for me, what really kills this game from the beginning is the lack of a real map size. The current city plot size is just a joke. And its not only about simulation restrictions; EA/Maxis choose the poorest idea to keep performance at bay, by limiting physical size. Even if i wish to build a city with a lot of aesthetics, like avenues, curved roads, bridges, and so, i could not, because the space is so small. I cant even have farmland. That certainly wouldn't press performance, a lot of space with farms, but thay choose the size way, and i fear the reason was purely to charge for bigger plots. They could perfectly managed the "performance issues" with sims limit on city, blocking immigration, or even restrict the city to a certain number of buildings, but they choose to limit the size of the map, what is really dull. Plus, there is zero terraform options, so the game is essentially a simulator, constricted by what EA wishes, and we basically administrate some kind of pet cities that are limited by a magical barrier. Tunnels? Bridges? Anyone? No, basically the maps are just simple squares. Hell, if at least i could have some realistic tiny plots of land, shaped by some "natural limits" it wouldn't feel so empty. I have other minor complaints, like low graphic quality, and over cartunesque style, but i could even cope with that. But the city limitation is a real deal breaker for me.

If you see people with reviews at 10 or 9, telling you "its fun and this is all that matters" are the same people that probably will find Farmville or any facebook game "fun and addictive". It will hit high for casual gamers. Anyone who really played some serious sim like previous sims will not have the same kind of opinion.… Expand

Don't be fooled by the high reviewer scores. The game proper is a good, albeit simplified and enjoyable game, but it is the EA(Origin) DRM wrapper that ruins it. If you buy this you will never own the game or your saves, you only licence them from EA for however long they decide to keep the servers alive and EA is notorious for killing off games before their time. That's right you're not allowed to save or load, must now log in and queue a la MMO and are locked out of the game as soon your connection to the servers is lost, all this for a private single-player experience. It's a sloppy attempt at multi-player, wedged into a single-player game in a thinly veiled attempt to hide the draconian DRM and the forfeiture of your rights as a consumer. If you don't want this to become the standard for all games, vote against it with your hard earned dollars.… Expand

This is a disaster. EA why have you screwed the SimCity Franchise. Curse you!!

1. Always online DRM
2. No local saves
3. Buggy mechanics
4. My crap dump size is bigger than your city maps
5. FCKIN Huge login queues what??? did I buy this game to stand in the queue to play?

This is my first review ever on metacritic. Too bad its not going to be a positive one but unlike the payed of journalist it will be an honest one. Here comes a list of things wrong with this game. Plain simple! 1. Always online DRM. (For obvious, logical reasons) 2. SimVille not SimCty (Painfully small building space. A city can NOT be built on 2X2 Km.Period!) 3. DLC microtransactions (Fine for a free-to-play game. NOT acceptable for a game you are renting for 80$, yeah you read correctly; renting. )

4. Not possible to create your own regions or terrain for that matter. (Maxis, ever heard of terraforming? If you are simulating something, do it slightly believable. Or is this not a simulation game?) 5. Suck you dry. (Yes, the layout of this game is made for sucking you dry and in the bad way- if there is a good one. They will probably open up the possibility for you to have bigger regions. But they will charge you for it. One lot at a time. They will also open up landmarks and cool new building. But they will charge you for it. They will open up terraforming. And again they will charge you for it. In the end you have spent 300$ on a game you wont be able to play say in 5 years time since you are renting it from EA!! )

4. Not possible to save your cities since the game autosaves for you. (If you make a misstake you stick with it just as in real life. Matbe this is a good thing? But wait, what if my cat jumps up on my keybord and places a really expensive building in the wrong place. That's right its a cat mistake but you'll have to live with it) 5. Me and You. Guys, we have just supported everything we think is wrong with this game. Be it Origin, EA, whatever. We have just condoned the destruction of a game we were all suppose to love and which many of us enjoyed as kids. How did we do this? Simply by donating 80$ to EA. Yes donated, the game is on their servers. Not on your computer! Right now we are EA's How does it feel?… Expand

Have to be online, have to have origin, no modding, no terraforming, farms or subways, city sizes are too small AND ridiculous overpriced DLC even at launch. Not to mention EA cant even keep its servers up long enough for me to get on and play. When I was able to play (for 20min) it didnt save and I have to start over.
Servers for this game will go down in a few years making it unplayable. TERRIBLE customer service. EA is a joke.… Expand

EA is one of the worst out there. I had huge issues buying the game in the first place, tried 20 times to get through with their dumb localizations in their store. Then connection issues for the game. DESIGNING A GOOD GAME DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO MISTREAT YOUR CUSTOMERS. NEVER AGAIN EA. Screw them. Moving on to better things. Just feeling a little sad for the dumb game developer who went with EA. All their efforts are in vain.… Expand

Sorry, won't accept "Always On" connection. I'll return it and state it's broken and wait 10 years for it to come out again on GOG.com. There is no reason to accept that fact that you have to sit in queue before you can begin playing a game. Nonsense.

Forced online no sale. It's not about DRM. It's not about Origin (no different than Steam). It's about one of the best single player game franchises of all time being corrupted by corporate whores. It's not acceptable to not be able to save your single player games on your pc, or mod your game, or to be limited by server up/downtime, or to have lag in a single player game.

This is not what players wanted. Optional online/multiplayer stuff would be fine. Forced online/social features is not. Tiny cities. Dubmed down gameplay. The destruction of one of the best games for people with brains, is just not acceptable.

EA should be burned at the stake for this.

The gaming press is grossly irresponsible for not slaughtering EA for this and it just makes it look like they are in the corporate pocket. Who do you think pays for their sites...yep...the big companies that ram trash like this down the gamer's throat.

As with Blizzard and Diablo 3, forced online for what has always been one of the best single player games is not acceptable. Blizzard eventually admitted most people play D3 single player. EA chose to follow the bad example bliz set with D3 and forced online instead of being reasonable.

I beg you, if you hate being treat like crap by corporate gaming that only cares about money and not quality of game, do not buy crap like this. Do not accept having your games taken out of your hands. Do not feed money to companies that treat gamers like criminals or cows to be milked for cash for inferior products.

I pay for my games. I have no problems throwing more money at a good game. But I don't appreciate having some of the best games of PC history ruined in the way that SimCity has been ruined. Forced online single player, no saving your own games, no modding in a game that has been kept alive for over a decade largely due to modding, dumbed down gameplay for a franchise that has always been intellectual.

It's a sad, sad, SAD day in PC gaming.

It's unfortunate that a lot of uniformed people will buy this, partially because the gaming press doesn't call out companies on garbage like this, and/or that a lot of stupid sheep will flock to this game for the dumbed down gameplay. Please, don't be stupid.… Expand

I left a review earlier about the game it's still a ZERO but lots of people saying the negative reviews are fake on here so the game gets a bad reception. Well I say go to amazon and read the verified purchased customer reviews same stuff as here. Although amazon rates on a star system SimCity sits at a 1.3 Star rating.

I have now wasted hours of my time. I rebuild, then get disconnected and loose everything. Rebuild, get disconnected, and loose everything. Not being able to save your game on something like this is absurd. Whoever came up with this idea should be fired, and take the idiot who approved it with you. In an attempt to prevent piracy, they have angered the people that actually paid for the game. I have no idea why they even bother. People that pirate the game either have no money to buy, or would not even if they did. They are not your customers, the people that pay are, focus on that. PLEASE!… Expand

Absolute Fail Im gona kill my self if every game gona have Forced online DRM The game is good but EA want money in every way like day 1 DLC or microtransactions It fells like the game ist finisd and wee must buy the Patch DLC to make play normal i buy ME 3 and im never gona buy game from EA again and now u guys know why

Forced Online is never a good idea! I can understand why the developers maybe thought it was a good idea to evolve their game around the notion of "our metrics show" everyone is online, however 1) no caching of cities locally for saves and undo's 2) ea servers are the worst 3) a god awful launch The worst thing about this is Sim City is a rather good city simulation game shrouded in the faeces of Electronic Arts business decisions! The saddest thing is I bet Sim City had massive pre-order sales and sales will continue to be massive! Better then all the other Sim Cities. I've heard of people that had a crashed game and lost their city! Talk about a time waste and a frustrating anti-user experience. Terrible game balance of too many fires (meh its silly really) Can't turn off disaters without turning on sandbox a mode that is fairly undesirable. As it negates the online experience for the sake of the faux online experience. For an online game you would expect calibration to be at the forefront but there are only 4 great works, the dlc has themes for other city types which are bad, and a false market world trade. This game makes me feel ill… Expand

Always online, no true single player, no way to save and reload your games, extremely small city size, lots of microtransactions planned and no way of knowing when EA will pull the plug.

Best save your dollars and skip this one.

Basically you buy a game for full price, and you do not even own it. Imagine 5 years from now EA closing the servers for the game. What now? You have a game you paid full price, but you can not play. Honestly if you pay for this, you are one of those people who do not mind being fooled by multi-billion-dollar corporations that exploit gamers. EA is ruining the gaming world with its actions. You can vote with your wallet! I only feel sorry for the developers who put a lot of work into their game just to be ruined by EA.… Expand

We waited this long for a piece of garbage like this? Thanks EA!

Don't like the interface, the tiny cities, the focus on individual sims rather than city building.

What a waste of time.

This game not worth 1199 rub (40$) permanent online, small mayor function, not even close to simcity 4. it/s like sim city social 2.0. What game will EA corporation dump next

Here we go again. Another game that is simply worse than its predecessor.
1) You must always have an active internet connection
2) You must use EA's origin service
3) Terraforming is officially out
4) Maximum sized maps are only the size of a SimCity 4 medium map, and to put the icen on the cake, you can no longer build outside your city area (the region is off limits!), so in other words you are limited to building a small city/town (no more sprawling metropolises like Sim City 4).
5) You cannot control regional mass transit anymore, and are restricted by pre-defined road connections.
6) Modding is out, at least for the time being. Personally I don't see how Maxis can include mod support in an MMO game anyway, because mods would upset the game balance, and game balance is usually essential in an MMO game DLC's would make an attractive profit earning alternative to communty mods
7) If you get some troll set up a city next to your city, and he decides to create lots of pollution or crime, your city will ofcourse pay the consequences
8) The game is very expensive, and i'm sure there will be many more DLCs to come to "fix" the game, and ofcourse earn EA an extra bit of profit from us consumers.
9) Your saved game will be located on an EA server. If EA decide to shut down the servers due to lack of profit, say goodbye to your cities! EA have a history of doing this with other games, and Maxis have blatantly ignored all questions regarding this matter.
10) No direct control of zoning, this is now controlled by the type of road used
11) No more farms or agricultural zones

Simply put, don't bother with this game, pick SimCity 4 up instead, you'll be better of that way.… Expand

Compared to the SimCity games before this is a joke, always online DRM, you don't own your savefiles, if you have a disconnect you are kicked from the game within minutes. The game feels dumbed down, with maps a lot smaller, barely any content. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!

I cannot emphasis how maddeningly bad this game is, and how boring it is.

Yes, EA's "online only" requirement is incredibly annoying, but I also have Battlefield 3, so I'm used to it. I'm not even going to comment on this aspect of the game any further, as it's been discussed here ad infinitum.

What is at issue is the actual game itself. It's bad. It's boring. It's restrictive. It's maddening. You are only allowed to build your "village" within a very small, confined space, a square, with a dotted line around it. That's it. That's it! That, in and of itself, is enough to ruin the game for me. After an hour, you've built a small village, and you're... done. You are done. You can tweak what you have, bulldoze some stuff, and... yeah. You're done. Now why did EA/Maxis do this? I can only speculate they are either really stupid, or really greedy. I expect in a few months they will start rolling out new content that you will have to pay for, e.g. $14.99 for "medium" sized maps (which will still be too small). The game really is a joke. The graphics are nice, but so are the graphics in Cities XL. I also wouldn't say they are that revolutionary. You might have seen the same product in 2009.… Expand

DRM for a single player game, Plots to small, can be filled in an hour, Already paid micro transactions announced, Servers crashed at launch, no preloading, don't bother

I created an account here just to say how bad this game is. I'll give it a 2 for nice visuals but the DRM and the server issues for this game are some of the worst I have ever experienced. WHEN WILL EA LEARN?! Seriously, I hope EA eventually goes bankrupt. They have absolutely no intention of supporting the gaming community. It's all about money to them. And the map sizes?! Ridiculous! Mark my words, they'll release DLC that allows bigger cities but you'll have to pay for it! Typical EA. What an epic fail.… Expand

Always online DRM sucks and it is completely unacceptable that people who bought your game should have to suffer any consequences whatsoever! Massive limitations compared to the original simcity games. No subways, no terraforming, tiny map, can't build you own airport, game has been dumbed down and lots of actions are performed automatically.

The game has a lot of problems. Only one of them actually matters. Never support always online DRM for a single player game. Lots of people cannot play their single player game because of this and gamers need to do everything they can to stop developers from including it. Do you still play SimCity 4? Good luck playing this game in 10 years. The servers will probably be down then and you'll be locked out of your single player game. SINGLE PLAYER!… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The map is incredibly small, the fact that I can't build my own metropolis having to piggy back off others is ridiculous. EA online garbage.... for not the first but second time you ruined a once fun game. Oh yeah and a leader board? What crap is that??? I don't care whose doing better or worse than me I want to play the game the way I want to play. If you idiots can fix the Mass Effect 3 ending by having us pressure Bioware then you can fix this crap filled game. Do not game developers play games? Why do they bring the same stuff they hate into our lives?… Expand

I think everything has been said, that needs to be said. Releasing a game in this state is a disgrace and a punch in the groin to all games and consumers alike. People should return their games and ask for a full refund and not let EA get away with it.

Many devoted SimCity 4 fans will not be moved by this game. It's too limited, requires you to be always online, and has little recourse for a community to grow around it like SimCity 4. Devoted fans loved Sandboxing even with regions. They also loved full on modding. EA will discourage this since each mod or add-on could be the source of micro-payments. SC4 fans did this in the past because they loved it. I'm worried for the franchise. SC4 may be the last great city simulation.… Expand

The city size is too small. You cant 'do' anything. As some person said, i can imagine EA selling bigger plots in the future, for more money. a total rip off, considering the initial game costs so much

And why can't i play by on my own? it is really rubbish.

This is the worst nightmare for anyone who is a long time SimCity fan. City sizes are limited to uselessly small cities. All the transportation and civil engineering is gone. It's impossible to play by yourself, or even play offline. If their servers don't feel like letting you on you're not playing, even "single-player". This is a game designed for people who are control freaks, and every choice they made seems to reduce control. I've waited years for this game and I'm so disappointed right now after trying it. … Expand

DO NOT BUY! This is not SimCity and this game is crippled by an online requirement.

Gone are the days of sprawling cities, this game allows only small towns. Gone are the days of using the terrain editor to craft custom worlds to populate. Gone are the days of sitting on a long plane ride immersed in your city because you now have to be connected to EA servers.

It's too bad Maxxis can't break away and get back to making the games that I used to love.… Expand

So I took the bait. Even after all the research I did on other Simcity forums from those who played beta I bought the game. Spent about 4 hours with it yesterday and I am quite disappointed in it. Let's get out the Pro's: Graphics Yes it looks very pretty. Even though I was shocked to see the "sims" looking like lego characters, overall the buildings and houses etc are very pretty.

Modular upgrades Excellent idea, and works very well. I never did like the idea behind "I need more firetrucks? build 5 more fire stations". Now I can add onto the Firehouse and expand it's coverage that way. Works very well for Police, Fire, Schools, etc.

Curved Roads I can actually build a realistic looking town. The curved roads are great. However they leave issues with putting down homes and buildings on them at times.

Now for all the Cons:

Online DRM I know everyone complains about this. I was willing to deal with it. Then the servers went down and I couldn't play. Is it first day issues? I'm not sure but it was almost ironic when the servers went down.

City Size Of course a huge complaint, other reviews mention this. Filled up my entire town in a little over an hour.

Diversity of buildings Where are all the buildings I want to build? I'm talking places like Museums, Churches, Zoo's, Post Offices, etc. etc. I can think of tons of missing content. Were these left out so EA can sell us buildings for $1 each later down the road?

Transportation So far it seems all you get are buses. No Train stations, no subways, etc. I do believe you can build an airport eventually.

The whole "Upgrade town hall to unlock stuff" Seems silly and unnecessary. I can't build a hospital because I already used my TownHall upgrade for something unrelated so I have to wait.

It's hard to really say all the issues with the game in just bullet points. One of the biggest issues I have is simply with the density of zones. Let me paint a picture for you. You have a nice suburban part of your town, where say you want your middle to upper class to live. They would live on nice single lane roads with maybe some cul da sacs shooting off that road etc. You can build the road system, and then zone it for residential. That's it.... So what happens? You get mobile homes all over, and the only way to get the houses to "upgrade" to nicer establishment is to put parks/recreation all over nearby (and their effect is small size wise). Or you have to upgrade the road. Now who lives on a 4 lane road in a mansion? Not many people I can think of. It's absolutely idiotic.

The game is definitely driven to have you share resources with neighboring regions. If you try to do it all in your one small city, you're in for a mess. So you have to essentially pause your game, and go to another city and start fresh there. Whether in the other city it's creating better jobs, or focusing on utilities to provide to your other city, etc.

Overall, I am extremely disappointed in this game. A lot of the issues CAN be patched, fixed, upgraded with a lot of work from Maxis. But in the state the game is now, it should never have been released. This will probably be a game I shelve for a bit, and hope that in a few months it becomes playable. As it sits now, I paid for a beta copy. If I could return this to EA I would.… Expand

Ok, let me just start with this, I am creating an account on this site for the sole purpose of letting people know how bad this game has been so far. There are so many server issues right now its ridiculous. I know a lot of people are complaining about not being able to connect, which, yeah sure that's not good, but I am going to talk about something worse than not being able to connect. Losing mass amounts of time and progress because the game loses connection to server while playing. This in all honestly has to be the most frustrating thing to happen to me by far. I would much rather just not being able to connect than to lose half my city because EAs crap servers took a dump. Normally that wouldn't be much of a problem because you could just upload data from local storage to the cloud but guess what, this game has no local save feature. That's right, none at all. Whoever made that bonehead decision needs to be fired on the spot. I honestly have a ton of gripes about this newest iteration on one of my favorite franchises(been a sim gamer since Super Nintendo and original Sim City) but I don't want to spend all my time being negative. The only other negative thing I will say is that the city plot sizes are terrible. I didn't think that they would bother me that much but they do, a lot. Only a short while into my cities life and I have already used up half the real estate. This game forces you to cram everything in the most efficient spacing possible just to get to a decent sized city. It really takes the wind out of your sails when you realize your almost out of room and you have not gotten a tenth of the things you had planned in to the city. That said, this game has sooooo much potential. The infrastructure and groundwork have been laid out to deliver one of the best city simulations of all time there are just too many things wrong at the moment to waste your time on it. I am severely regretting buying this game. Has the time come to stop pre ordering games? I think so. To many bad decisions in game making over the past year or so has left me jaded towards developers and publishers. Im looking at you Blizzard, Bioware, EA and Maxis. You all know better but we keep taking the crap you are shoveling and asking for more so why would you ever stop? Nah, not gonna happen until we, the consumers, start speaking with our wallets. I for one WILL start speaking with my wallet from now on. No more good faith purchases for this video game nerd.… Expand

Don't Support Always on DRM. Never! Can't even play a game because servers are full for a SINGLE PLAYER GAME. I can't beleive that they would do this to consumers. But people are still buying the game left and right. STOP SUPPORTING DRM.

Now this is just another horrible instance of how a greedy publisher can destroy a potentially awesome game, from a really good series of games. First of all, Maxis, well done. You've created an interesting, fun and absorbing game, like you have done in the past. Secondly, EA Games, go bury yourself. The gameplay itself is nice and fun. But it's impossible to not notice the obvious parts that are missing, just so they can be added as DLC and sold for more profit later on. Subways for example and other means of transportation that could easily have made the "final product". Also, regarding this whole "always online" way of avoiding piracy, that does'nt work so well does it. First of all, on launch day, the game is still unaccessable. Secondly, if you do create a nice city that you wish to continue playing, you're out of luck if your server is full. Either you're put into a queue, or you will have to start a new city on another server, putting your old favorite in the do-it-later-when-I'm-allowed-to-play-what-I-want pile. Great.

Also, Sim City is one of those perfect games to play when you just want to chill out and relax a little by yourself. The Sim City series have always been like that. Going away to your cabin for the weekend? Want a single-player game that ain't demanding, that you can just play for fun? Sim City has always delivered, along with other "tycoon" games.

But now, thanks to the DRM, you always have to be online. So you can kiss those days goodbye as well.

This could have been a great game worth spending hundreds of hours on. Thanks to the greed of the publisher, it's the complete opposite. Way to go there, ruining many players hopes of finally getting the best Sim City experience yet.

I can't recommend this as a purchase for anyone. No matter how fond you are of city-sim games.… Expand

Between city size, no save/load functions, necessity to be always-online, I'm not sure I would buy this game at full price as it exists right now. The gameplay is enjoyable and the visuals are nice, but it feels incredibly limiting. This game has a lot of promise but sadly the product as delivered just feels clumsy. Hopefully EA takes criticism to heart and actually attempts to learn from missteps instead of just handwaving all concerns.… Expand

As I sit waiting (over an hour at this point) for the server to allow me to play this single player game, I'm struck by these thoughts: EA can force me to install Origin. They can force me to maintain a persistent internet connection. They can force me to wait for the game's release rather than preloading, despite how ridiculous that is since the game requires an operational server to play. They can force their DRM down my throat. But they can't force me to give a good rating. Zero, EA. You failed to listen to your customers and have miserably failed at this launch. If you'd like me to rate the game itself, just wait, I'm in the queue to play. Just 20 minutes left... and 20 more... and 20 more...… Expand

Origin, DRM that won't let you play this as a single player game and a complete lack of saving and reloading makes this POS rather unworthy of the name SimCity. FU, and F your online checks, EA.

Revising downward, because the game is still broken and at this point it's just a total joke. Even Polygon's review has been changed to 40 (from 95) on their website. EA has resorted to disabling all the social features that they claimed made always-online necessary in the first place, so now it's just a bald faced lie. It's DRM, period. That DRM is breaking the game. As it stands right now this product is not fit for sale. They also disabled cheetah speed, a feature of every other Simcity game. Pathetic. If you get past all the server problems, the city size is still absurdly small (no doubt because their servers can't handle larger ones), but who cares about that when the game flat out doesn't work reliably?… Expand

The plots of land you get to use for your so-called city only covers about 8 by 8 city blocks. This is ridiculously small compared to previous Simcity games. To make things worse, you cannot build a city directly adjacent to your first city. Instead your other cities in the region are about 5 miles away. Forget trying to build any real-world cities. As for the gameplay, roads cost all your money, and there's next to no new buildings in the game. I'm going back to play Simcity 4. Do not waste your money on this game.… Expand

The management part itself is good. BUT. Online only so actually hard to access to the servers. Very small maps. IA pretty strange sometimes. I can already smell the near DRM. It's easy. Just take the features of simcity4 you don't have in the fifth. (-_-) Your city is a part of a group of other cities else she can't be... You are far away from the good old games we played where you built your own city self sufficient by your own.
Perhaps you will like this "ALL MULTI ONLY ONLINE LOL" we get now, but not me.… Expand

Yes, this game is a lot of fun. Yes, it's more user friendly than the old versions of SimCity, but what does that matter whenever their servers that you HAVE to use are down? You can't play if that's the case and, surprise surprise, that's the case this morning on the -first- day of launch. Hopefully this deplorable score will wake up EA to finally get their act together.

Welcome to EA. Not only did they make a server queue, but if you miss the narrow window when you can click the play button. They go ahead and put you in a whole new queue. Often it is my experience that upon buying an EA game, I'm preparing myself to get treated poorly. EA has done it again with Simcity. This is an awful experience, and EA does not care. Just check out their twitter which ignores all complaints.

Welcome to gaming with EA, hope they stop buying good games and ruining them.… Expand

I give up and will be returning my copy, if I purchase a game I want to be able to play it, why the hell does a single player game demand always on internet and rely on an external service to even start?!!? I will never ever buy anything from Maxis or EA again

The usual "EA corporation" destroying awesome companies like Maxis. DO NOT BUY SIM CITY! Not only you need to be online at all times to play, but in a few years from now, the game will NOT be playable anymore (when they take the servers down). Do NOT encourage this practice. This is bad for everyone who likes video games if only a little.

It's error 34 all over again! and EA killed the modding community for this POS (you know how modders keep SC 4 a game that fun to play even until today!!) So we should expect this game to died out probably up to two years from now.. Let's just wait for some competitor to publish city simulator games without greed in mind.

How on earth can they not learn from the debacle that is Diablo 3? And for a game that requires thousands of people to be online at one time, it is almost criminal for them not to ramp up their server from day one.

This game had potential, but even more problems that needed to be solved. Their sell scheme is a bizarre combination of licenses, cut content from the game, and day one DLC. The game itself punishes you for playing alone, due to the fact that you are extremely limited to expand anything, giving the fact that you only get 2km x 2km to build at, while other Sim city games in the past had 10 times as much space.

Because of this bizarre turn of event you are forced to build other cities connected to your city forms of transportation and design each and every city in a theme, in order to supply all sectors with water, jobs, transportation etc. Your town only regenerates income or resources when you load the city, you are being punished for playing alone, because your other cities connected to your prime city wont generate anything. You solve this issue by forcing your friends to purchase a license to the game and let them take control over your other districts, hence generating resources needed to run you main city. You know by now that the forced Online DRM will kick you if your internet stops working for a second, you will lose progress, money and buildings when the game kicks you and shuts the game down when your internet goes down.

Full EA servers that forces you to wait hours to play is also bad.… Expand

Another horrible always online DRM game. I still play the original sim city single player and that game was made 20 years ago but with this new sim city EA will turn off the server making this game unplayable in a year or two, also i don't like how small the cities you are aloud do build are, theres no subways and no terraforming. I would recommend nobody on buying this game.

WARNING after doing a TON of research I have deamed this game a joke. DONT BUY IT! Im not. This is the biggest slap to the face for simcity lovers, and gamers in general since EA became a money hungry. Buy a dog or something

-No option to be 100% offline with single player mode -Always-on connection to Origin -Limitations to players in fake single player mode -The presence of empty spaces not editable (useless empty spaces) with automatic road connections -Absence of farms -Road connections placed in a fixed and pre-determined location on the map -Airport City (the city is only one International Airport, occupying the entire mao 2x2km)
-Automatic road connections
-Player doesn't have complete control over the zoning by population density (almost automatic zoning)
-Dead space between all the buildings
-Size of the maps is 2km by 2km (small maps)
-Not being able to control the regional transport
-Modding restrictions

NO SUBWAYS
NO FREEWAYS
NO TERRAFORMING
NO SAVING OR LOADING
NO SPACE TO BUILD
MUST LET STRANGERS RUIN YOUR CITIES MUST BUY RESOURCES TO POWER YOUR CITY… Expand

Can't even get the game to download. And once I do, it appears the game will be unplayable since their servers are overloaded. I do hope they get these problems worked out, but until then, avoid it.

Remember back when you were a kid and Mario 3 had a 30 min wait time to play the game? Well i don't ether, do not buy this game for any reason, It will be unplayable in a few years and dose not work now. Take a look at the critic reviews, they have been given a lot of money to lie to you.

Yesterday, I was able to play this single player game for maybe an hour before becoming disconnected from the server; waited in queues for 30 minutes at a time only have my queue restarted at the end of each 30 minutes. Middle of day 2, my region won't load. It goes without saying that the release of this game is a fiasco, but what is rightfully upsetting is that EA has broken very logical convention for a game of this type, and really gone out of its way to put its customers at risk of dealing with this inconvenience. If EA were a TV manufacturer, an airline, a pharmaceutical company....they would be issuing refunds right now. In the least case, they owe a very public apology to their customers who preordered or purchased before they had their servers working. As far as the DRM is concerned, I cannot imagine a poorer way to treat paying customers.
As for the actual gameplay that I was able to experience: If I had to sum it up in one word, unfortunately that word would be "lame". Aside from the day one bugs, such as not being able to sell power to my partially-grown neighboring city, I was seriously let down by the abnormally anemic size of the cities and by the shallowed complexity as compared to SC4. I miss the graphs...they were the best way to show you how well you have done over time, and what elements changed in your SC4 city. The demand system is not doing well: I had half of the acreage of my city covered in middle-wealth families, a quarter in middle-wealth commercial, and a quarter in middle wealth manufacturing. What are the sims telling me? The residents say there are no jobs and not enough shopping. The shops say there are not enough potential employees or shoppers. The factories say there are not enough potential employees or "places to ship their goods", i.e, shops. So yeah, that is perhaps the most essential system in the game and it's currently half-baked. It is visually decent, but the animations are still buggy (i.e. sims jittering around as if possessed).
I believe it is completely fair to compare this game to SC4, particularly as the developers have spent plenty of time alluding to the connection between the two. At this moment in time, SC4 is hands-down a more challenging, more complex, and, without a doubt, more rewarding game. The multiplayer aspect was a bold diversion from the logical direction, and has thus far not only failed to add anything meaningfully positive but has made the game literally unplayable for the core market who preordered or purchased in the first days. Obviously, fixing this issue is priority one. Expanding the city size is priority two. These two glaring issues need to be fixed before we can pretend that this game is worth more than $20 (issue one needs to be fixed before this game is worth a penny!). I'm not sure we're ever going to see this game being worth the $60 that so many of us have paid.

I'm rating a zero, obviously, for the fact that on day two I still cannot play the game. If I were to pretend that I could play the game, I would give it a 3.5. Overall rating rounded up to 2.

To remake a lyric from Team America: "I miss you more than Electronic Arts missed the mark, when they made SimCity..."… Expand

Another example of EA failing royally. Always online, chances you can't reach server, forced social facebook crap, small regions to built cities in, there are simply too many limitations to enjoy the game. Another case of EA trying to build a "product" for the dumb masses and facebook generation, instead of building on the strengths of Sim City 4.

Played at a friends house and this game is definitely worse than Sim City 4 and tries to be a Societies advanced. So if you are a player with low standards and happen to be a member of the facebook generation you might enjoy this mediocre game, if you are a gamer with standards, you stay clear and tell EA with your wallet that they should finally handle games as games and not as products with limitations, because they think the players have not enough intellect to grasp a more complex gameplay. This mindset of the big publishers sickens me.

Next gameseries down the drain, just like Dead Space 3. EA has lost their touch, and the developers have to suffer.… Expand

If you've never played a simcity game, this is an amazing game on its own. But having played every simcity game in the franchise, this is really disappointing. The main complaint is the extremely small city size compared to its predecessors. The always-online component is not necessary.

I don't usually hold sway with down-rating games on metacritic, but this release ticks enough obnoxious-boxes that I feel it's warranted.
The £45 asking price on Origin is obscene, especially considering the inevitable drip-feeding of endless DLC content that should rightfully be included in the game.
The DRM is inexcusable, no matter how much they dress it up as "social gaming" if it'ss mandatory in a single-player game, it's wrong.

Really, the DRM and premium content would be entirely justifiable if they transitioned to a Free To Play model. Nobody could argue then.
I'll be damned if I'm going to fork over £45 up front for the privilege of being exploited though.

The game might be amazing... looks like I'll never know.… Expand

I will never again buy a single player game that requires a game server. Nothing more frustrating than not being able to play your game you bought, with the exception of playing it then have none of what you've done saved because the server went down.

The game itself, as I have seen is lots of fun. However, the restrictions are horrible. Cloud based saving, so you can't have your save files on your PC, small cities, and the DRM,always online Origin. This game could have been good, but they made it terrible.

I barely have the words to describe the disappointment i felt after playing a few hours of SimCity. Having been an avid fan for many years i jumped into this with high hopes of gameplay. Now, the gameplay i didnt mind too much, its fun, though still quite a few bugs around. What kills the game however is the everything besides the actual ingame content.

What enraged me to the point of physical arm waving was the fact that you had to be connected to the internet EVERY SINGLE MINUTE YOU PLAY THIS GAME. Combine this with highly unstable servers(And my router sometimes failing on me) resulted in me tens of times being trapped in the tutorial without being able to do anything, NOR GO AND PLAY THE REAL F*CKING GAME! But thats not all! Turns out that if you get disconnected during your gaming session your game might not be saved, which means that several hours of work suddenly goes down the drain. And to top the whole thing off: YOU CAN'T SAVE THE GAMES YOURSELF!

The only thing that made me feel marginally better was the fact that thousands of others expressed their fury online. I recommend you all to rather wait for a pirated version where you CAN ATLEAST PLAY OFFLINE, rather than buying this smoking pile of animal dung. But don't take my word for it, just have a chat with one (or all) of the thousands of other gamers who seem to agree with me.… Expand

I managed to play for a while on one of the new servers. Today I go back and "I'm in a Queue". OK, Ill try a different server! Wait... no I don't want to play the tutorial again, and where are my saved games? Oh, they're on the other server? WTF EA.

First of all, please stop making fun of my thumbs.
Second of all, DRM...really EA? oh wait, it is EA after all and they like sucking our money. Think of EA like the federal reserve unregulated and unethical

Aside from issues such as origin, requiring a constant internet connection (I already have this wonderful device to save my games it's called a hard drive), and DRM which has been proven to promote piracy, the game is simply crap. Regions cannot be edited, the city sizes are tiny and all the finger details which made simcity great are gone. This is simply a dumbed down version of simcity 4 that looks nice. Check the ratings, the prime demographic has spoken, but as usual EA is too stupid to listen to their customer base. Ignore the hired spokesmen, which includes the media, this game is crap.… Expand

The game's been out for 2 days. In the 6 hours I've been trying, I haven't even been able to get into the tutorial level because of server issues.

Poor form, EA.

3 Days into launch and I still cant play, this is embarrassing!!!! Day one DLC? Does it include an add-on that will make this game actually work? It really kills me that such a great game has been ruined. I will be looking for a refund for the first time....ever...

So, i`m rewriting my review. After the server issues get fixed, i finally find the real problems with the game: Traffic problem cannot be solved after your city gets really big. The map size is awful (about 5 miles x 5 miles). There is no terraform tool Not only the map size is small but some terrains have another waste of space with rivers, sea and mountains. From time to time your city is striked with disasters, and every town that i create a nuclear plant, the giant monster always attack and strikes right on my plant, wasting half my city.
The zombies occupies almost all residencies, and you start losing money quick, because you have do demolish everything they infected, and you lost works, and your power plant stop working, and the caos begins....

In other words: this is no simulation game, this is a very frustrate, small neighborhood simulator...… Expand

I want my money back. I don't how care how beautiful or complex the game looks. If it doesn't work then these things are irrelevant! EA has alienated many SimCity fans including myself. I hope they have learned a lesson from this. Oh, and since I am already at it here's another complaint. Nix DRM! This is an absurd element to have in this kind of a game. Make multiplayer games optional and provide users with optional updates and patches, like in the past. What happened to the emphasis on personal choice in the SimCity franchise philosophy anyways? Went down the drain with EA's fascist republic of gaming business model, I guess.… Expand