this is the shell of a game that used to be. By far the worst The Sims ever.
Here's my two cents as an enjoyer and fan of the sims: the whole system is very boring, desires and aspirations and all. Also, the fact that the 3 had no loading screens was epic. Why introducing it??? With the time they had to do it they could have given even more freedom in the construction but instead they didn't do it, the 3 was much freer here (you could create your own personal textures , hello??? in the first deluxe edition you had the MAKER. Absurd to go this low.). At this point they could have done it that it mined your data because the base game sucks and just sucks money (ok it's EA, no fucking surprise) while in the others the expansions were real expansions and the game was enjoyable even without them. I first played the sims borrowing the cd from a friend because i couldn't afford it. I loved that i didn't even knew there were expansion at first since the base game was full of SOUL, STORY, INTERESTING CHARACTERS. it was enough. But now if you don't buy all the other dlc it almost seems that you can't enjoy the game. Anyway I candidly admit that i had all expansions, and it was shitty nonetheless lmao it's barely passable, maybe if you also have the mods you'll manage to enjoy a few hours more but never how much I enjoyed the others.

I think it paved the road for the sims 3, what it lacks in the mechanics that the sims 3 implemented, it makes for it with an incredible set of characters that inhabit its world. The fact that you could go through the memories of people that were already in the game and reconstruct their story (and often a WEIRD one) was incredible to me and really pushed me not only creating my family but made me care for the story of the other npcs, thing I barely did in the other games as you don't really have the same chance to connect with them. It makes you feel as you are stepping into a space that it's alive with or without you, not that it's there only for you.