I appreciate the complexity of the systems that are implemented, and I can see how there is a specific type of player that will gain immense satisfaction and replayability from this game (which will be the only game they will ever play). However, ultimately I find this city builder just not exciting; it lacks character or soul or whatever it is that makes me engross myself to a management game and paint everything with my own self-made narrative.

Whenever I try to start the city planning (kind of the point of the game?) I always end up having to improvise, and placing that high school or that police station wherever I have room. If instead I want to relax and start in sandbox mode to replicate any real city, soon I find hard limits in the game mechanics. It seems like the gameplay is meant to always eventually turn your cities into bland, generic towns from the United States, unless you want to really struggle with the infamous traffic issues. Also the base music is horrendous.

I might come back to Cities Skylines to try out one or two of the expansions, but that super aggressive DLC model is not very inviting either.