DRM is bad.

"F2P" is worse.

Shareholders > Workers.

... I can still remember how that music used to make me smile ...

I have a powerful computer. I bet my computer (a quad core i7 Ivy Bridge @ 2.6 GHz) could run the game with much larger cities and no need to offload anything to EA's servers. We were lied to - there is no processing offloading!!! That was a DIRECT LIE to cover up the fact that always-on is 95% about DRM and 5% about social features.

For the first few days, I stood up for this game because once you actually logged onto a server it seemed quite fun.

As the flaws in the engine become apparent, and we find out that it is not the "deeply complex" engine we were promised, every last shred of excitement has left the game for me. Especially the part about Sims not actually having a home or a job, but just taking the first opportunity along their broken pathfinding path. What a disgrace.

The traffic problems have killed EVERY attempt I've made at a successful city.

I'm going to reinstall SimCity4. I want to actually plan and build a city. SimCity 4 may use mathematical algorithms instead of a Glassbox "simulation engine" but at least it works.

@BelaidKL What about the fact that the server issues were mostly solved within 4 days and yet this "5.0" will stick around?

It has been 5 days and the game is now mostly stable. I haven't had problems logging in for 2 days. This should have remained a "review in progress" (like on IGN) until things got up and running. EA also offered "a free game" (no word yet on what games qualify) to make it up to us.

The game is incredibly fun and deep, and with a little more polish may be one of the best simulation games EVER. This review is short-sited, just like the 6.0 GS gave LoL because it wasn't quite ready when Riot started selling RP and "starter packs."

Imagine if GS had reviewed WoW back in Nov 2004 before some ironing. I remember "death lag" where you couldn't even res because it would take as long as an hour for your dead body to spawn in the world. Now THAT was broken, but GS waited and gave it a 9.5 because the game was awesome once it got moving.

Very disappointing lack of patience, and not the usual for KVO.

@Karjah Yes we all know Blizzard lost a ton of money on D3... Oh wait. NO they didn't!

How can the man who brought you Tabula Rasa possibly be wrong?

(I mean, aside from spending more time in development than live...)

@Hondje89 @kingJord @TheGreatPhoenix all I'm saying is that when a game has the potential to be entertaining for hundreds of hours once a few bugs (server and game) are worked out, a 5.0 is harsh.