SimCity

 PC
User Score
2.2

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 4557 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 602 out of 4557
  2. Mixed: 428 out of 4557
  3. Negative: 3,527 out of 4557
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  1. ICE_MAN_3rd_ID
    Dec 8, 2013
    3
    I bought the disk version from GameStop without knowing that it was a downloadable always online only game. Had I known that, I would have never bought the game. But, alas, I have spent the money. I like the other SimCity games so I said "I'll give it a try". Bad mistake. The traditionally 1 player game is now based on multiplayer gameplay. Thanks for ruining everything that I love EA.
  2. Magnetarizgin
    Dec 30, 2013
    3
    Suits in charge have runed another franchise, why do people that probably hate videogames think they know better than us? Easy, they may think they are superior to us and they dont respect us at all... Suits also seem rushed in t making a new videogame crash, I don't know, maybe they want to kill videogames alltogheter in the firstplace so their normal perfectly fine hoobies return onceSuits in charge have runed another franchise, why do people that probably hate videogames think they know better than us? Easy, they may think they are superior to us and they dont respect us at all... Suits also seem rushed in t making a new videogame crash, I don't know, maybe they want to kill videogames alltogheter in the firstplace so their normal perfectly fine hoobies return once again to supremacy?? Whatveter, the future for this inustry is grim if we keep enabling this retards.… Expand
  3. notapaidcritic
    Jan 9, 2014
    3
    This game really is a turd. I bought it a week after release. Stopped after realizing the simulation was broken. Waited for 10+ patches. Updated around Xmas. Played enough to get 4 cities in a region and start building the Solar Farm. Freight, trade, resources going to storage lots (trade depot) , storage lots (ports), shared resources from neighbors; FLAT OUT BROKEN. I have twoThis game really is a turd. I bought it a week after release. Stopped after realizing the simulation was broken. Waited for 10+ patches. Updated around Xmas. Played enough to get 4 cities in a region and start building the Solar Farm. Freight, trade, resources going to storage lots (trade depot) , storage lots (ports), shared resources from neighbors; FLAT OUT BROKEN. I have two coal mines, coal in lots, yet somehow my smelters and coal power plants never have coal. Same instance with every resource going to any destination. Alloy to Great work, ore to smelter, plastic to processor factory...

    Thought the issue may lie with transit. However.... Traffic is not causing this issue. Sold all resources, closed depots/lots/ports re-opened, re-worked all streets and transit to eliminate all red/yellow areas on streets and somehow the resources/freight take 3 three days to move. REALLY? Ok, I'm laughing now because it's absurd.

    My first PC game was SimCity 2000. I was in 5th grade or something. I'm 28 now and have loved each installment since. What used to be a wonderful city simulation has gone very wrong. (Insert EA blame here).

    No, but really....EA..... Maxis and Dice were phenomenal before you became their publisher... I wish they hadn't sold out. Gaming companies that are successful today, listen to their community. EA has not been doing that. For anyone thinking about buying Simcity 2013. Please do not, until you read a review in 5 years that says that came is actually functioning correctly. If that ever happens.

    3 for graphics, sound, and the developers effort. - 7 for gameplay, DRM, lies, ruining franchises, inflated prices, bad patching, DLC, and BF4 bugs.    … Expand
  4. PartyTurtle
    Jan 13, 2014
    3
    I was soooooo excited to play this game with all the famous people playing it and all, but when I bought it and it crashed on me and it deleted it and tried to redown load it and it sad it wouldn't because some on else bought it. sooooooo angry and no refund for $69.99.
  5. alexanderyou
    Feb 1, 2014
    3
    There are many great features in this game: beautiful graphics, multiplayer (kinda), and that's pretty much it. The many faults I found in this game are: 3x the price for a third the content, almost completely unbalanced and impossible to fulfill late game requirements, and very limited options compared to the vast amount of buildings present in previous simcity games. I have simcityThere are many great features in this game: beautiful graphics, multiplayer (kinda), and that's pretty much it. The many faults I found in this game are: 3x the price for a third the content, almost completely unbalanced and impossible to fulfill late game requirements, and very limited options compared to the vast amount of buildings present in previous simcity games. I have simcity creator on the Wii and it has more content...… Expand
  6. Exwin0880
    May 14, 2015
    3
    This game is so bad, it destroyed the studio that made it.

    RIP Maxis, another company who's soul has been destroyed by EA for the price of a few box sales.
  7. tsakiym
    May 14, 2015
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I do not have to say anything more. But i need to write one hundred and fifty characters. i think my score can describe it............................… Expand
  8. Titannumber20
    Mar 15, 2015
    3
    All the good things that this game has managed to achieve are overshadowed by the poor design choices made and the technical issues. Simcity is not even the best city simulation game in the market, that honour belonging to Cities:Skylines.
    Simply put, do not buy.
  9. Nekellor
    Aug 1, 2018
    3
    Нормальная музыка. Ужасная картонная графика. Неправдоподобное, легко изменяемая система развития города. Забагованность, вылеты. И просто скучно. На один присест.
  10. oddible
    Apr 24, 2013
    2
    Patch 2.0 has come out, a patch so huge that they gave it a .0 release number. It resolves many issues with the game but unfortunately BREAKS many others. Unbelievably, they have resolved traffic issues from fire trucks and police cars piling up, but have broken taxis and school busses which now pile up. They broke pollution and now tiny cities with zero industry will see MASSIVEPatch 2.0 has come out, a patch so huge that they gave it a .0 release number. It resolves many issues with the game but unfortunately BREAKS many others. Unbelievably, they have resolved traffic issues from fire trucks and police cars piling up, but have broken taxis and school busses which now pile up. They broke pollution and now tiny cities with zero industry will see MASSIVE pollution rolling across their glass box reducing land value and making your 500 person city unhappy this even on regions with zero other cities. Maxis cannot seem to get it right. After their complete failure with Spore failing to deliver the game that they had presented at all the expos, I really expected them to nail this one, but alas this is a cataclysmic failure that will likely spell the demise of Will Wright's brainchild.… Expand
  11. DaveH
    Mar 6, 2013
    2
    I haven't played SimCity in a long time, so I was looking very forward to getting back into the franchise. So far, I've experienced far more disappointment than satisfaction. #1, because of the always online DRM, your ability to play the game at any given time rests squarely in the hands of EA. You're essentially leasing the game from them, you're not buying it, it's not yours. #2,I haven't played SimCity in a long time, so I was looking very forward to getting back into the franchise. So far, I've experienced far more disappointment than satisfaction. #1, because of the always online DRM, your ability to play the game at any given time rests squarely in the hands of EA. You're essentially leasing the game from them, you're not buying it, it's not yours. #2, it's has a SINGLE PLAYER GAME component that still has always online DRM. It's conceptually ridiculous when a single player game relies on a 3rd party in order to even work. #3, when I finally got in, I initially enjoyed playing the game. The aspects of city-building are pretty deep. The downside quickly became apparent; there's no room to build sprawling cities like with past titles.

    ..... #4, make no mistake, this is designed to be a multiplayer game where a collective ground of people each contributes to an overall goal for a region. I prefer to play the single player component, but in its current state, that isn't very good.    … Expand
  12. Kehdar
    Apr 18, 2013
    2
    This game is garbage. I don't even want to talk about how the game requires an internet connection to start. Today it's the third time i start a city just to see it disappear after some errors" or disconnections.
    Waste of money and time.
  13. purutaru
    Mar 5, 2013
    2
    A great game marred by EA's always-online requirement and cloud saves.
    1) Autosaving of cities are unclear you do not know when your creations are saved. Crashing to desktop is almost a death sentence as your cities literally disappear or got rolled back to empty wilderness when you log back on. 2) Unable to join servers and therefore unable to play a product you payed for unacceptable    A great game marred by EA's always-online requirement and cloud saves.
    1) Autosaving of cities are unclear you do not know when your creations are saved. Crashing to desktop is almost a death sentence as your cities literally disappear or got rolled back to empty wilderness when you log back on. 2) Unable to join servers and therefore unable to play a product you payed for unacceptable especially when no ETA on fixes are given. 3) If you idle in the join game selection lobby for abit (less than 1hr), after a while you cannot join/load.create any game you get a failed loading message. It's as if they disconnected you from their servers without telling you. Other minor bugs are present but do not impact the game too much. Except traffic pathing AI perhaps.

    Conclusion: Even if you can tolerate the online DRM, the potential loss of your friends' creations upon disconnect/crash is enough to make you give up after 2-3 fresh retries. Don't buy this game until they work out this major problem (on saving cities and crash/disconnect recovery)    … Expand
  14. RogerWilco2099
    Mar 7, 2013
    2
    The premise has been lost with this game, with a name like Sim City you want to create just that. A vibrant metropolis of large scale. Unfortunately this has been lost forever now it seems. Maps are smaller then ever and while it has many great features these are virtually the same as the four games before it. The innovation that was promised really isn't there. The game forces you moreThe premise has been lost with this game, with a name like Sim City you want to create just that. A vibrant metropolis of large scale. Unfortunately this has been lost forever now it seems. Maps are smaller then ever and while it has many great features these are virtually the same as the four games before it. The innovation that was promised really isn't there. The game forces you more so then ever to link your city to neighbors which I felt was the fundamental flaw in Sim City 4. Everything under one roof so to speak now doesn't work. The choice isn't even there and has been simply removed. The are bugs and I had to hard restart the game on two occasions due to crashes. These didn't seem linked either so two hard restart bugs on launch isn't good at all. The biggest issue so far is the constant connecting to server issues associated with the needlessly over the top DRM. This function shouldn't make a game non-playable but it does. It kind of shocking that EA are so over-protective now that they will willingly hamper a players experience. I hope this is quickly patched. If so my rating will be higher, but in its current state the game is verging on unplayable.… Expand
  15. upupandaway
    Mar 7, 2013
    2
    Content-wise it is a really nice game very engaging and motivating, despite the criticism regarding map size or similar issues. If however I pay 80€ for a digital download of a game which is not an MMO and I am absolutely unable to play the game, lose progress on cities because connections are extremely unstable even 24h after launch something is very wrong with the deal... The two betaContent-wise it is a really nice game very engaging and motivating, despite the criticism regarding map size or similar issues. If however I pay 80€ for a digital download of a game which is not an MMO and I am absolutely unable to play the game, lose progress on cities because connections are extremely unstable even 24h after launch something is very wrong with the deal... The two beta were meant to evaluate server load prior to the release did they act on that? It seems that no: In the server list there is a total of 4 servers dedicated for european users next to US and pacific servers. Since EA is apparently that cheap, they´ll get an appropriate score from me... Don´t buy the game (now). At least wait.… Expand
  16. WooFerPPK
    Mar 5, 2013
    2
    I've been waiting all day to play this game, however so far ive spent more time waiting to get into the game, and finally when i got into the game, every public region was locked. I managed to build a very small city until the game crashed forcing me to go through all this again. Do not waste your money on this. This always online thing is a terrible idea and does not make sense for a gameI've been waiting all day to play this game, however so far ive spent more time waiting to get into the game, and finally when i got into the game, every public region was locked. I managed to build a very small city until the game crashed forcing me to go through all this again. Do not waste your money on this. This always online thing is a terrible idea and does not make sense for a game that could easily be offline.… Expand
  17. bodean
    Mar 7, 2013
    2
    DRM kills this game, as the previous 1000+ people said. Can't log into servers, always checking for updates. Terrible launch. And now EA will not take a refund on the game. Don't waste your hard earned cash on this company, and their bad products!
  18. Angeredsoul
    Apr 19, 2013
    2
    I'm going to keep this short and simple. This game fails to work properly, if my city isn't being rolled back for the hundredth time then my highways either stop working or work contrary to how you would expect them to. Also add to the fact that the always online DRM, eventually the servers will be shutdown and this game will never be able to played again. Only benefit was I scored DeadI'm going to keep this short and simple. This game fails to work properly, if my city isn't being rolled back for the hundredth time then my highways either stop working or work contrary to how you would expect them to. Also add to the fact that the always online DRM, eventually the servers will be shutdown and this game will never be able to played again. Only benefit was I scored Dead Space 3 as a consolation prize.… Expand
  19. Necrotaur
    Mar 14, 2013
    2
    Update 3/14: Login issues seem to be fixed, but there are still major problems with this game. We all know about the forced online and small map size, but I haven't seen too many people mention the bugs. Remember how the beta was capped at 1 hour? There are TONS of issues, and most of them only become apparent after a few hours of play. I suspect the beta was less about finding andUpdate 3/14: Login issues seem to be fixed, but there are still major problems with this game. We all know about the forced online and small map size, but I haven't seen too many people mention the bugs. Remember how the beta was capped at 1 hour? There are TONS of issues, and most of them only become apparent after a few hours of play. I suspect the beta was less about finding and squashing bugs, and more about publicity. I've had every single sim become homeless for no apparent reason, hundreds of thousands of simoleans disappear from my treasury, buses and trade centers refuse to work despite there being no traffic, and power to cities going out upon logging, taking several in-game days before it decides to turn on again. The list goes on. Now, the SimCity franchise is no stranger to bugs, but these are literally game-ending because there is no save ability. There are questionable gameplay mechanics too, such as the inter-connectivity of cities, where a single 'bad' player can ruin a game, or the crippling simplicity of the transit, job and housing system. The latter has only become apparent in the last few days, and it indicates everything Maxis/EA told us about sophisticated AI and massive amounts of route calculations was a lie. Google it and see for yourself. SimCity is not a 'sim' in any sense of the word, and I can't recommend it to anyone.… Expand
  20. ORIOLE
    Jan 30, 2021
    2
    It's bad as they said in 2013, developers never played older Sim CIty.
    Finite and scarce resource, you are obliged to follow the steps the developers planned for your gameplay, it starts with coal in early game and obligatorily change to clean energy in late game, there's no choice.
    Small minigame maps that compels you to construct Mega Towers to compensate the small space, no farms, no suburb.
  21. Boombastix
    Mar 19, 2013
    2
    Always on connection and server problems are bad but they'll be fixed. The worst thing about the game, and something that not many people have even acknowledged is the map size: it's stupidly small!! I had pretty much accomplished everything I wanted to within a few hours and filled every square inch of land. And no, it's called 'Simcity', not 'Simcities' so I don't want to have to make aAlways on connection and server problems are bad but they'll be fixed. The worst thing about the game, and something that not many people have even acknowledged is the map size: it's stupidly small!! I had pretty much accomplished everything I wanted to within a few hours and filled every square inch of land. And no, it's called 'Simcity', not 'Simcities' so I don't want to have to make a whole lot of small crappy cities and have them 'interconnected'. They just had to make a slightly updated and better version of Simcity 4 and they would of made millions of people happy, and millions of dollars. Why reboot what's not broken??… Expand
  22. Mascalzone
    Jul 8, 2017
    2
    I agree with the mean of the user score, even if I'm a professional reviewer and I've to give it a vote near 6 (55). I TRIED to play it at day one with the problems you witnessed. Then tried to play it after update 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0. No way, SimCity is fundamentally broken. A piece of s**t, in other words. Will Wright, please make it properly (better than SC4!) via Kickstarter, we'll finance it.
  23. RyanMorgan
    Mar 6, 2013
    2
    Awful game. This is not SimCity. This is SimVillage. You cannot build a city: for starters, a 2 by 2 kilometre map is far from a city. I get real cities are many hundreds of square kilometres, and this would be impossible to simulate, but 8 by 8 km would provide satisfactory room. Honestly, it takes just a few hours to fill up a city. Secondly, the cities are separated by retarded openAwful game. This is not SimCity. This is SimVillage. You cannot build a city: for starters, a 2 by 2 kilometre map is far from a city. I get real cities are many hundreds of square kilometres, and this would be impossible to simulate, but 8 by 8 km would provide satisfactory room. Honestly, it takes just a few hours to fill up a city. Secondly, the cities are separated by retarded open land, and cities are "in a bubble", contradictory to Lucy Bradshaw and others. If city tiles were contiguous, small maps wouldn't be such a problem. but then roads and rail would still be fixed in place another thing that really annoys me. The graphics are fantastic and the gameplay is great, but this doesn't mean much when I play for a few an hour and have fully developed my city. Then, there's Origin. I couldn't play SimCity because of EA's pathetic platform for almost ten hours, unable to download it. Once I did download it, I took me half and hour to eventually connect to a server. Simcity's online-only aspect has bit EA on the backside, proving that, for now, it is not a reliable way to deliver a game. I've played SimCity 3000 and 4, and it looks like I will continue to do so after this train-wreck.

    Please, avoid this game, you will be disappointed (unless you're just a casual "gamer")    … Expand
  24. Nomus
    Mar 6, 2013
    2
    It's incredible how the greed for money can ruin user experience. And those EA guys trying to convince us that DRM implemented in the game is totally alright. Seriously EA i stop buying your games you don't deserve it. YOu deserve to die as a company that kills nice IPs and gamedev companies. That DRM that doesn't allow you to play SP is just a last drop.
  25. IriathZhul
    Mar 7, 2013
    2
    I bought the game because, even though I got screwed by Diablo 3, I figured I'd give EA one chance.

    So far, they have blown it--the game is unplayable. It gets two stars because the time I have been able to play it, it has been very fun. I will adjust my score if I can get one week without problems, but in the meantime, the low score will serve as a message to EA that they NEED to get    I bought the game because, even though I got screwed by Diablo 3, I figured I'd give EA one chance.

    So far, they have blown it--the game is unplayable. It gets two stars because the time I have been able to play it, it has been very fun. I will adjust my score if I can get one week without problems, but in the meantime, the low score will serve as a message to EA that they NEED to get their act together. This is unacceptable and bordering on fraud.    … Expand
  26. Fuu
    Mar 8, 2013
    2
    Sim City has really flopped, even if you remove the server issues from the equation. I feel really bad for the guys at Maxis who had to make the game like this, I have a feeling that it wasn't their decision. Over the last two days I've managed to play for about 10 hours on the Europe West 2 server despite the horrible server problems, and I'm already getting bored with the game. HavingSim City has really flopped, even if you remove the server issues from the equation. I feel really bad for the guys at Maxis who had to make the game like this, I have a feeling that it wasn't their decision. Over the last two days I've managed to play for about 10 hours on the Europe West 2 server despite the horrible server problems, and I'm already getting bored with the game. Having spent thousands of hours to all of the previous versions of Sim City, that is a surprise I didn't expect when paying 60€ for the game. At 6€/h that is a pretty steep price for two frustrating days of queuing to the servers and constantly being afraid to loose your progress.

    Severe points reduction from the city sizes that are probably the most crippling aspect of this game. The current map is full to the edges after only few hours of play and you get a claustrophobic feeling in the game with no space to expand. Moving to second region just postpones it a few hours and frustration returns even stronger when it also runs out of space. Your city looks like a downtown of a real city that's cut out from a larger entity with real suburbs and all that nice surrounding built area. Developers say that the choice was made so that even low end PCs could play the game. I don't understand why they couldn't use the same approach that has been taken in Sim City 4: variable size maps. You just pick the map that your PC can handle when it's maxed out and that's it. If the choice was too large one, try again with a smaller one. Problem solved. It's annoying how the developers are trying to explain away design decisions with "pretend logic" and hoping that players don't notice. I'm guessing most likely the orders came from above to limit the city sizes for some future DLC release. Or some other crap like that. I just want to refuse to believe a serious game designer wouldn't notice how much the city size limit affects the game experience.

    Lots of minus from roads, somehow all the fun is missing from building the roads because of the minuscule city sizes and lack of choice on how to connect to neighboring cities. That's a shame because building roads and designing road networks has always been one of the key aspects of Sim City. It's also annoying how you have to upgrade all your roads to high density because otherwise your city just won't grow in population, and then you have a city with only high buildings. Having the curvy roads is great, but doesn't compensate for all the other lacks.

    To add insult to injury, there is the always on DRM that doesn't let me choose when to save regions, or allow me to reload regions at previous states. I don't have possession of my own save games from private region where I'm the only player. The pollution that crosses city boundaries into neighboring cities and abandoned city slots pretty much guarantees that I have no intention to play on public regions where I can't control actions of the other cities.

    The game is pretty and smooth, credits for that. The simulation engine seems to work nicely. But I'm not going to spend hundreds of hours to this game just because it looks pretty and I can follow each Sim around in the city. It must be fun to play, the City Building must be the primary activity and the current version just isn't any of that. Many of official reviews said the game is a lot of fun. I disagree.

    Looking at how EA did their calculations about the required amount of servers to support their player base, it seems that they need at least 4-8 times more server capacity to do the job than estimated. After the doubling of the initial capacity that I've seen today, the servers are still completely bogged even with the cheetah speed and game features disabled. So here's an interesting thought to ponder: How much is EA willing to spend on running these servers for an extended period? How many hours of server time at amazon did my 60€ buy? At what point is EA going to decide that it's time to pull the plug or they will start loosing money for every hour I spend on this game? Their initial estimates on the server costs were 4-8 times under the mark, and you can bet your house on it that EA is not going to allow Sim City to add to the red side of their balance sheet if the investors have any say on it. Be prepared to make a door stop from your Sim City DVD much sooner than you thought, this one is not going to be kicking for 10 years like it's predecessor. Please, don't repeat my mistake and support this horrible business model of always on-line single player games that pretend to be serious multi-player games to get your moneys. I would ask for my money back, but apparently EA doesn't refund games bought from Origin. Thanks EA for ruining Sim City.    … Expand
  27. Kilmeister
    Mar 16, 2013
    2
    As a long time fan of the series (Played every one including the original). I fell into the trap of thinking that the complaints weren't justified. Well they are. The game is so close to being a real great title, but has too many gamebreaking flaws. Always on DRM. I feel dirty for paying for this since I have balked at other titles for this very reason. At first I thought the smallAs a long time fan of the series (Played every one including the original). I fell into the trap of thinking that the complaints weren't justified. Well they are. The game is so close to being a real great title, but has too many gamebreaking flaws. Always on DRM. I feel dirty for paying for this since I have balked at other titles for this very reason. At first I thought the small city sizes was just a style preference, but I then realized it was a cover for the horrible pathfinding, which unfortunatly hinders not just traffic, but power,water,etc. I think this game still has a chance at redemption, but unless they clean this mess up, pass on it and save your money.… Expand
  28. Skawn
    Mar 13, 2013
    2
    A fun city builder with lofty ideas of having several cities working together. Fun to play as one city but you quickly need to expand and specialise and here the game just falls apart. Servers frequently refuse to sync your cities meaning although one has surplus power and the other has surplus water they won't buy from each other. The AI is hilariously bad, pathfinding is moreA fun city builder with lofty ideas of having several cities working together. Fun to play as one city but you quickly need to expand and specialise and here the game just falls apart. Servers frequently refuse to sync your cities meaning although one has surplus power and the other has surplus water they won't buy from each other. The AI is hilariously bad, pathfinding is more reminiscent of an 80's game than a modern sim. Will review my score in a month!… Expand
  29. Pathogen
    Mar 8, 2013
    2
    Fun game when it works, but servers are congested and rarely function. Basically unplayable. EA's stated they're going to remove functions from the game to decrease load, but that's also reducing the fun factor. Do not buy. Complete waste of money.
  30. NEWater
    Mar 8, 2013
    2
    I really like the idea and concept that no city lives in a vacuum, and the game attempts to reflect that by including multiplayer elements of cooperation with municipal services and competition in global trade of commodities, but in terms of the simulation it feels like it's "SimCity Lite". There were many features that were central to the SimCity franchise that got cut out in the name ofI really like the idea and concept that no city lives in a vacuum, and the game attempts to reflect that by including multiplayer elements of cooperation with municipal services and competition in global trade of commodities, but in terms of the simulation it feels like it's "SimCity Lite". There were many features that were central to the SimCity franchise that got cut out in the name of "streamlining" i.e. plan your own highway off-ramp locations, tiny plot size, terraforming, etc. Sure, the much-vaunted Glassbox simulation engine that tracks the activity of every individual sim promises a more "accurate simulation", but it's moot when so many aspects of the game's AI behave like retards. Traffic goes into a standstill even if you spend 75% of your budget on public transport if you commit the crime of having more than 5 intersections in your main arteries. Someone even proved how pants-on-head retarded the traffic AI is by making a city out of one single winding snake road spread out across the lot, and managed to have a successful city because of it because 0 intersections 0 gridlock. vOv

    I really want to like the game and the synergy it promotes, but unfortunately there are many things that need to be done for the game to be a success. The Always-Online system is not necessarily a DRM, but also something in-built to the game that had poorly thought-out execution. It failed to account for the contingency that someone's game would disconnect, and does not have an offline save that could be uploaded to the cloud the next time the player reconnects to the server (Diablo III and StarCraft II had that, at least). EA/Maxis also failed to properly stress test in their popular beta stages, and additionally they were piss poor in their communication to their players when they were attempting to sort out their server woes.

    On top of the always-online stuff, the game itself is in need of a significant overhaul. Traffic AI needs to be fixed. The RCI indicator is a lie after 2 days of playing and finding out that zoning according to the RCI indicator did nothing for my economy, I clicked on my population window and found everything I needed to know in the detail tab. I then decided to ignore everything the game was telling me through RCI and the ingame prompts, and did much better in my subsequent cities. There are just way too many aspects of the game that were either because of poor design decisions and poor execution that kind of border on amateurish. Somehow, I think that this SimCity 2013 has become a deeply wounding blow to Maxis's reputation. Lots of fanbois will protest and say that Maxis is perfect, and EA is at fault. But I've been observing this game for a long time, and Maxis is just as complicit as EA in this, from the Online Lead being a Maxis staffer to Maxis designers themselves who wanted the always-online concept to begin with. Lots of people who have been playing Maxis games since the 90s have since lost their trust in Maxis, and it can only go downhill from here.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

2
#2 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
21
#21 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
64

Mixed or average reviews - based on 75 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 75
  2. Mixed: 39 out of 75
  3. Negative: 10 out of 75
  1. PC Master (Greece)
    Jun 5, 2013
    65
    Given enough patches and DCLs, SimCity might eventually become the game that should have been on its release and justify the ambiguous choices that its developers made. [May 2013]
  2. Games Master UK
    May 9, 2013
    68
    Hints at great things but is limited by small cities and promises it can't deliver on. [June 2013, p.80]
  3. Hyper Magazine
    May 9, 2013
    40
    There's more problems with this game than I have words. Looks great though. [June 2013, p.80]
See all critic reviews »