A good, fun enjoyable game. But if you want the latest installment in the SimCity series, don't buy this game.
The game is basically centered around one key idea. To gain and balance out social values to make a city with a chosen atmosphere. There are several social values from Prosperity (a posh, rich city) to Industrial (citizens do all the work and you get all the money, slum housing). Each building produces or absorbs one of these. So you have to balance out these in order for your city to work. There are goals assorted to social values like Fun City and if you progress far enough towards this goal your streets are transformed. For Fun City the roads are 'yellow brick' and the lampposts are candy canes! Which is a very pretty feature. I also like the comical way people walk down the streets. You can follow any Sim around the city as he/she goes around their daily business. You can even change their names to your liking. Special Sims are great fun too. Certain buildings spawn them and they range from Mime artists to Cops and Robbers. They can give your city a bonus or just make your life difficult.
You can change the difficulty setting on the but either way it is a very easy game to play. There is the option to change whether you have unlimited Simolions but then it is just too easy. Or to unlock all buildings, as you unlock most buildings over time.
The game does acquire quite allot of time to get a decent size working city, but it is worth it. As the visuals are my favorite in any game. They're not the latest realistic graphics but are very good, almost comical. Which makes cities very pretty to look at. This is one of the reasons I brought it. I love the Sims 2 but would really like to make a pretty city. This and because I wanted to try a Simcity game is why I get it despite all the bad reviews.
So I advise that if you just wants to make a really pretty looking city easily and don't expect it to be anything like other SimCity games then this is a good game for you.