I know, this game was really bad at launch kind of but now a year and a bit since its initial release I can say with a good feeling: Crime Boss Rockay City is actually a decent game now.
Ingame Studios could have moved on a long time ago, but they stuck with it. They have been releasing consistent updates with hot fixes and are still working on more content to come.

Let's start with the negative aspects. Firstly, the game is notorious for its terrible acting, which is ultimately true. However, because the story is nothing special and a lot of cutscenes are summarised again in a text box, I now skip 90% of them. Apart from that: Are there people who seriously think Chuck Norris is great?

The music is really not good either. After listening to it once or twice, I just switched it off and now listen to a podcast or an audio play or an audio book whiel playing. I think this game is perfect for that.
Let's stay with the sound for a moment. The cutscenes are far too loud and don't seem to be affected by the general sound settings. Well, I skip them anyway.
I also encounter performance problems every time I start the game, which I solve by switching V-Sync off and on again.
I've only had one or two bugs so far, which weren't too bad.

But that's more or less all I have to criticise about the game. The rest is surprisingly positive.
In the rogue-lite single-player campaign, we play Travis, who has probably just lost a Raylan Givens Look-A-Like contest and sounds like he smokes three packs a day without a filter. After the death of the crook King, he wants to take over the city. However, other gangs have the same in mind and the police is standing in his way.

On our way to the top, we take over districts, rob jewellers, valuables transports and so on, buy better weapons, level up our crew, might forge a temporary alliance and so on. In addition to the normal raids, which work in a similar way to Payday, there are also more specialised raids, such as a major railway robbery, which is prepared by several smaller raids and trading operations. In return, the loot is not to be scoffed at if you make it.

We have our office, for which we can buy all sorts of stuff, which then gives us boss XP for boss levels. After each boss level-up, there are three permanent bonuses to choose from, which are unlocked for all playthroughs. For example, we can choose for Travis to have more health, for our own gang to do more damage or for us to gain more experience as a percentage. Unlike in Payday 2, you can see what you have to choose from and therefore don't have to select the hidden card with the red dot sight for the thousandth time.
There are not only the boss levels in the single player, but also the account level. You can choose between three unlockables for each level-up. A new weapon, a new gang member, a new multiplayer skin or new weapon camouflage. These unlockables are presented as magazine covers. Personally, I find it unnecessary that a magazine cover with a woman's bottom wearing the unlockable weapon camouflage as a pattern on a bikini was chosen for the weapon camouflage.

We also need to expand our empire. To capture new districts, we attack other districts. In doing so, we are even thrown into the perspective of our foot soldiers and have to go in ourselves. Foot soldiers can die permanently and are only available in limited numbers. So you shouldn't treat them lightly. Our districts can also be attacked and must be defended.

I really like the Heist difficulty in combination with the permanent death.
When I was still playing Payday 2 and you were swimming in money at some point, the selection of a heist somehow always went like this:
"Do we take this one?"
"Erm .... pffff ... Nah, it's not worth it. There's not enough money in it."
"This one?"
"Yeah, no, I don't have that much time before I have to leave."

Okay, fine, I'm talking about the single player and now I'm coming up with the multiplayer of another game.
What I mean is: no matter how much money you have, there's always the possibility of losing it all.
Do I take the high-risk job that pays a lot of money or do I play it safe and take the one that pays less but can be done in no time?
As each crew member, apart from Travis, can only be deployed once a day, you also have to plan who you take with you and when.
Do I go in with four so that I have enough firepower if necessary? But then I might only be able to do one heist a day.
Do I go into this mission with just one or two people because I just need to kill someone quickly, or do I take a whole team with me just in case?
This risk-and-reward system is a lot of fun for me.

The bots can even be given commands (unlike Payday). They can bag loot, take the bags to the car, intimidate specific people and tie them up. They even do a lot of this on their own. I just sometimes lose track of what has already been looted and what hasn't.

Besides your bog standard running and gunning in a loud approach where you can place drills, go into firefights with gangs and the police and escape with the goods, you can also opt for a more covert approach in stealth which although isn't perfect brings a heap of fresh ideas to the table.
There are three warnings that will activate the alarm if exceeded. To prevent detection, avoid being seen by guards and cameras and refrain from engaging in suspicious behavior such as crouching, picking locks, or carrying a weapon. Unlike in Payday, you can holster your gun without issue as long as the alarm remains inactive.
There also is a difference between gangs and police/security in stealth mode. Killing police/security people quielty will result in a warning and you will be informed that people will look for the missing person. Killing gang members quielty won't result in such a thing. I guess this was made in order to balance stealth a bit, as police/security usually comes in small numbers and killing them would trivialise stealth even more. Gangs on the other hand often come in big numbers and therefore are more likely to spot you.
Sometimes there also are cameras which you can take out by destroying them or using the camera blinder to temporary disable them without raising suspicion. Additionally there are these central camera computers where you can disable all cams at once.

Overall Crime Boss Rocket City is very fun to play. I can confidently say that it's just what I needed right now. For 12 Euro and a few Cents, I got a solid amount of content and entertainment. I died three or four times in one day, but I didn't feel bad at all. I was a bit annoyed, but I really wanted to try and take the city again. Not a masterpiece, but not the worst game of all time either. Just a solid game that's fun if you can overlook certain problems.

I know, this game was really bad at launch kind of but now a year and a bit since its initial release I can say with a good feeling: Crime Boss Rockay City is actually a decent game now.
Ingame Studios could have moved on a long time ago, but they stuck with it. They have been releasing consistent updates with hot fixes and are still working on more content to come.

Let's start with the negative aspects. Firstly, the game is notorious for its terrible acting, which is ultimately true. However, because the story is nothing special and a lot of cutscenes are summarised again in a text box, I now skip 90% of them. Apart from that: Are there people who seriously think Chuck Norris is great?

The music is really not good either. After listening to it once or twice, I just switched it off and now listen to a podcast or an audio play or an audio book whiel playing. I think this game is perfect for that.
Let's stay with the sound for a moment. The cutscenes are far too loud and don't seem to be affected by the general sound settings. Well, I skip them anyway.
I also encounter performance problems every time I start the game, which I solve by switching V-Sync off and on again.
I've only had one or two bugs so far, which weren't too bad.

But that's more or less all I have to criticise about the game. The rest is surprisingly positive.
In the rogue-lite single-player campaign, we play Travis, who has probably just lost a Raylan Givens Look-A-Like contest and sounds like he smokes three packs a day without a filter. After the death of the crook King, he wants to take over the city. However, other gangs have the same in mind and the police is standing in his way.

On our way to the top, we take over districts, rob jewellers, valuables transports and so on, buy better weapons, level up our crew, might forge a temporary alliance and so on. In addition to the normal raids, which work in a similar way to Payday, there are also more specialised raids, such as a major railway robbery, which is prepared by several smaller raids and trading operations. In return, the loot is not to be scoffed at if you make it.

We have our office, for which we can buy all sorts of stuff, which then gives us boss XP for boss levels. After each boss level-up, there are three permanent bonuses to choose from, which are unlocked for all playthroughs. For example, we can choose for Travis to have more health, for our own gang to do more damage or for us to gain more experience as a percentage. Unlike in Payday 2, you can see what you have to choose from and therefore don't have to select the hidden card with the red dot sight for the thousandth time.
There are not only the boss levels in the single player, but also the account level. You can choose between three unlockables for each level-up. A new weapon, a new gang member, a new multiplayer skin or new weapon camouflage. These unlockables are presented as magazine covers. Personally, I find it unnecessary that a magazine cover with a woman's bottom wearing the unlockable weapon camouflage as a pattern on a bikini was chosen for the weapon camouflage.

We also need to expand our empire. To capture new districts, we attack other districts. In doing so, we are even thrown into the perspective of our foot soldiers and have to go in ourselves. Foot soldiers can die permanently and are only available in limited numbers. So you shouldn't treat them lightly. Our districts can also be attacked and must be defended.

I really like the Heist difficulty in combination with the permanent death.
When I was still playing Payday 2 and you were swimming in money at some point, the selection of a heist somehow always went like this:
"Do we take this one?"
"Erm .... pffff ... Nah, it's not worth it. There's not enough money in it."
"This one?"
"Yeah, no, I don't have that much time before I have to leave."

Okay, fine, I'm talking about the single player and now I'm coming up with the multiplayer of another game.
What I mean is: no matter how much money you have, there's always the possibility of losing it all.
Do I take the high-risk job that pays a lot of money or do I play it safe and take the one that pays less but can be done in no time?
As each crew member, apart from Travis, can only be deployed once a day, you also have to plan who you take with you and when.
Do I go in with four so that I have enough firepower if necessary? But then I might only be able to do one heist a day.
Do I go into this mission with just one or two people because I just need to kill someone quickly, or do I take a whole team with me just in case?
This risk-and-reward system is a lot of fun for me.

The bots can even be given commands (unlike Payday). They can bag loot, take the bags to the car, intimidate specific people and tie them up. They even do a lot of this on their own. I just sometimes lose track of what has already been looted and what hasn't.

Besides your bog standard running and gunning in a loud approach where you can place drills, go into firefights with gangs and the police and escape with the goods, you can also opt for a more covert approach in stealth which although isn't perfect brings a heap of fresh ideas to the table.
There are three warnings that will activate the alarm if exceeded. To prevent detection, avoid being seen by guards and cameras and refrain from engaging in suspicious behavior such as crouching, picking locks, or carrying a weapon. Unlike in Payday, you can holster your gun without issue as long as the alarm remains inactive.
There also is a difference between gangs and police/security in stealth mode. Killing police/security people quielty will result in a warning and you will be informed that people will look for the missing person. Killing gang members quielty won't result in such a thing. I guess this was made in order to balance stealth a bit, as police/security usually comes in small numbers and killing them would trivialise stealth even more. Gangs on the other hand often come in big numbers and therefore are more likely to spot you.
Sometimes there also are cameras which you can take out by destroying them or using the camera blinder to temporary disable them without raising suspicion. Additionally there are these central camera computers where you can disable all cams at once.

Overall Crime Boss Rocket City is very fun to play. I can confidently say that it's just what I needed right now. For 12 Euro and a few Cents, I got a solid amount of content and entertainment. I died three or four times in one day, but I didn't feel bad at all. I was a bit annoyed, but I really wanted to try and take the city again. Not a masterpiece, but not the worst game of all time either. Just a solid game that's fun if you can overlook certain problems.