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. mrpuck
    Mar 6, 2013
    0
    So I took the bait. Even after all the research I did on other Simcity forums from those who played beta I bought the game.
    Spent about 4 hours with it yesterday and I am quite disappointed in it.
    Let's get out the Pro's: Graphics Yes it looks very pretty. Even though I was shocked to see the "sims" looking like lego characters, overall the buildings and houses etc are very pretty.    So I took the bait. Even after all the research I did on other Simcity forums from those who played beta I bought the game.
    Spent about 4 hours with it yesterday and I am quite disappointed in it.

    Let's get out the Pro's:

    Graphics Yes it looks very pretty. Even though I was shocked to see the "sims" looking like lego characters, overall the buildings and houses etc are very pretty.

    Modular upgrades Excellent idea, and works very well. I never did like the idea behind "I need more firetrucks? build 5 more fire stations". Now I can add onto the Firehouse and expand it's coverage that way. Works very well for Police, Fire, Schools, etc.

    Curved Roads I can actually build a realistic looking town. The curved roads are great. However they leave issues with putting down homes and buildings on them at times.

    Now for all the Cons:

    Online DRM I know everyone complains about this. I was willing to deal with it. Then the servers went down and I couldn't play. Is it first day issues? I'm not sure but it was almost ironic when the servers went down.

    City Size Of course a huge complaint, other reviews mention this. Filled up my entire town in a little over an hour.

    Diversity of buildings Where are all the buildings I want to build? I'm talking places like Museums, Churches, Zoo's, Post Offices, etc. etc. I can think of tons of missing content. Were these left out so EA can sell us buildings for $1 each later down the road?

    Transportation So far it seems all you get are buses. No Train stations, no subways, etc. I do believe you can build an airport eventually.

    The whole "Upgrade town hall to unlock stuff" Seems silly and unnecessary. I can't build a hospital because I already used my TownHall upgrade for something unrelated so I have to wait.

    It's hard to really say all the issues with the game in just bullet points. One of the biggest issues I have is simply with the density of zones. Let me paint a picture for you. You have a nice suburban part of your town, where say you want your middle to upper class to live. They would live on nice single lane roads with maybe some cul da sacs shooting off that road etc. You can build the road system, and then zone it for residential. That's it.... So what happens? You get mobile homes all over, and the only way to get the houses to "upgrade" to nicer establishment is to put parks/recreation all over nearby (and their effect is small size wise). Or you have to upgrade the road. Now who lives on a 4 lane road in a mansion? Not many people I can think of. It's absolutely idiotic.

    The game is definitely driven to have you share resources with neighboring regions. If you try to do it all in your one small city, you're in for a mess. So you have to essentially pause your game, and go to another city and start fresh there. Whether in the other city it's creating better jobs, or focusing on utilities to provide to your other city, etc.

    Overall, I am extremely disappointed in this game. A lot of the issues CAN be patched, fixed, upgraded with a lot of work from Maxis. But in the state the game is now, it should never have been released. This will probably be a game I shelve for a bit, and hope that in a few months it becomes playable. As it sits now, I paid for a beta copy. If I could return this to EA I would.    … Expand
  2. codeforfood
    Mar 8, 2013
    0
    the server is full, he give me a choice to choose another server but the save on new server is not sync, that mean you have to play a new game in every new server what a stupid design
  3. Altheo
    Mar 6, 2013
    0
    This is my first review ever on metacritic. Too bad its not going to be a positive one but unlike the payed of journalist it will be an honest one. Here comes a list of things wrong with this game. Plain simple!
    1. Always online DRM. (For obvious, logical reasons)
    2. SimVille not SimCty (Painfully small building space. A city can NOT be built on 2X2 Km.Period!) 3. DLC    This is my first review ever on metacritic. Too bad its not going to be a positive one but unlike the payed of journalist it will be an honest one. Here comes a list of things wrong with this game. Plain simple!
    1. Always online DRM. (For obvious, logical reasons)

    2. SimVille not SimCty (Painfully small building space. A city can NOT be built on 2X2 Km.Period!)

    3. DLC microtransactions (Fine for a free-to-play game. NOT acceptable for a game you are renting for 80$, yeah you read correctly; renting. )

    4. Not possible to create your own regions or terrain for that matter. (Maxis, ever heard of terraforming? If you are simulating something, do it slightly believable. Or is this not a simulation game?) 5. Suck you dry. (Yes, the layout of this game is made for sucking you dry and in the bad way- if there is a good one. They will probably open up the possibility for you to have bigger regions. But they will charge you for it. One lot at a time. They will also open up landmarks and cool new building. But they will charge you for it. They will open up terraforming. And again they will charge you for it. In the end you have spent 300$ on a game you wont be able to play say in 5 years time since you are renting it from EA!! )

    4. Not possible to save your cities since the game autosaves for you. (If you make a misstake you stick with it just as in real life. Matbe this is a good thing? But wait, what if my cat jumps up on my keybord and places a really expensive building in the wrong place. That's right its a cat mistake but you'll have to live with it) 5. Me and You. Guys, we have just supported everything we think is wrong with this game. Be it Origin, EA, whatever. We have just condoned the destruction of a game we were all suppose to love and which many of us enjoyed as kids. How did we do this? Simply by donating 80$ to EA. Yes donated, the game is on their servers. Not on your computer! Right now we are EA's How does it feel?    … Expand
  4. DA2sucks
    Mar 11, 2013
    1
    It takes Ubisoft to learn that it just not worth having persistently connected games and deal with the potential customer backlash afterward. I've since wary of buying anything coming out of Ubisoft. I will stay out of EA too if this persist and vote with my money, until they learn...
  5. JesseG
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    Ok, let me just start with this, I am creating an account on this site for the sole purpose of letting people know how bad this game has been so far. There are so many server issues right now its ridiculous. I know a lot of people are complaining about not being able to connect, which, yeah sure that's not good, but I am going to talk about something worse than not being able to connect.Ok, let me just start with this, I am creating an account on this site for the sole purpose of letting people know how bad this game has been so far. There are so many server issues right now its ridiculous. I know a lot of people are complaining about not being able to connect, which, yeah sure that's not good, but I am going to talk about something worse than not being able to connect. Losing mass amounts of time and progress because the game loses connection to server while playing. This in all honestly has to be the most frustrating thing to happen to me by far. I would much rather just not being able to connect than to lose half my city because EAs crap servers took a dump. Normally that wouldn't be much of a problem because you could just upload data from local storage to the cloud but guess what, this game has no local save feature. That's right, none at all. Whoever made that bonehead decision needs to be fired on the spot. I honestly have a ton of gripes about this newest iteration on one of my favorite franchises(been a sim gamer since Super Nintendo and original Sim City) but I don't want to spend all my time being negative. The only other negative thing I will say is that the city plot sizes are terrible. I didn't think that they would bother me that much but they do, a lot. Only a short while into my cities life and I have already used up half the real estate. This game forces you to cram everything in the most efficient spacing possible just to get to a decent sized city. It really takes the wind out of your sails when you realize your almost out of room and you have not gotten a tenth of the things you had planned in to the city. That said, this game has sooooo much potential. The infrastructure and groundwork have been laid out to deliver one of the best city simulations of all time there are just too many things wrong at the moment to waste your time on it. I am severely regretting buying this game. Has the time come to stop pre ordering games? I think so. To many bad decisions in game making over the past year or so has left me jaded towards developers and publishers. Im looking at you Blizzard, Bioware, EA and Maxis. You all know better but we keep taking the crap you are shoveling and asking for more so why would you ever stop? Nah, not gonna happen until we, the consumers, start speaking with our wallets. I for one WILL start speaking with my wallet from now on. No more good faith purchases for this video game nerd.… Expand
  6. Prince_Mammon
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    I barely have the words to describe the disappointment i felt after playing a few hours of SimCity. Having been an avid fan for many years i jumped into this with high hopes of gameplay. Now, the gameplay i didnt mind too much, its fun, though still quite a few bugs around. What kills the game however is the everything besides the actual ingame content.

    What enraged me to the point of    I barely have the words to describe the disappointment i felt after playing a few hours of SimCity. Having been an avid fan for many years i jumped into this with high hopes of gameplay. Now, the gameplay i didnt mind too much, its fun, though still quite a few bugs around. What kills the game however is the everything besides the actual ingame content.

    What enraged me to the point of physical arm waving was the fact that you had to be connected to the internet EVERY SINGLE MINUTE YOU PLAY THIS GAME. Combine this with highly unstable servers(And my router sometimes failing on me) resulted in me tens of times being trapped in the tutorial without being able to do anything, NOR GO AND PLAY THE REAL F*CKING GAME! But thats not all! Turns out that if you get disconnected during your gaming session your game might not be saved, which means that several hours of work suddenly goes down the drain. And to top the whole thing off: YOU CAN'T SAVE THE GAMES YOURSELF!

    The only thing that made me feel marginally better was the fact that thousands of others expressed their fury online. I recommend you all to rather wait for a pirated version where you CAN ATLEAST PLAY OFFLINE, rather than buying this smoking pile of animal dung. But don't take my word for it, just have a chat with one (or all) of the thousands of other gamers who seem to agree with me.    … Expand
  7. Gegabone
    Mar 7, 2013
    0
    I give up and will be returning my copy, if I purchase a game I want to be able to play it, why the hell does a single player game demand always on internet and rely on an external service to even start?!!? I will never ever buy anything from Maxis or EA again
  8. biowarez
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    It's error 34 all over again! and EA killed the modding community for this POS (you know how modders keep SC 4 a game that fun to play even until today!!) So we should expect this game to died out probably up to two years from now.. Let's just wait for some competitor to publish city simulator games without greed in mind.
  9. swisskiltbear
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    I'd love to write a really favorable review about my favorite game franchise of all time. I played the original SimCity on the C64. Like I said, I'd love to. But I can't. Simply for the reason that I am unable to play the game due to the most intrusive DRM I've seen yet. I received the DVD yesterday, but of course could not install the game, since it was "unreleased". My PC at home that II'd love to write a really favorable review about my favorite game franchise of all time. I played the original SimCity on the C64. Like I said, I'd love to. But I can't. Simply for the reason that I am unable to play the game due to the most intrusive DRM I've seen yet. I received the DVD yesterday, but of course could not install the game, since it was "unreleased". My PC at home that I am currently watching remotely, is trying to install the game since this morning 8:00 am and consistently failing due to server overload and therefore being unable to validate the key. Way to go EA. Not!… Expand
  10. Dimonte
    Mar 7, 2013
    3
    Could have been a brilliant game, but right now it's almost completely decimated by unreliable cloud saves, tiny maps, lack of terraforming and tacked-on online features.
  11. mexranger
    Mar 7, 2013
    0
    Its a major drawback when you cant actually play a game you purchase. Constant server issues and in-game glitches make this a game we all should have avoided. Governments should legislate against gaming companies which continue to release games unfinished or so poorly supported Don't buy it until you are given guarantees that it will work or that they are discontinuing DRM
  12. Dabosso
    Mar 7, 2013
    0
    Have to be online, have to have origin, no modding, no terraforming, farms or subways, city sizes are too small AND ridiculous overpriced DLC even at launch. Not to mention EA cant even keep its servers up long enough for me to get on and play. When I was able to play (for 20min) it didnt save and I have to start over.
    Servers for this game will go down in a few years making it    Have to be online, have to have origin, no modding, no terraforming, farms or subways, city sizes are too small AND ridiculous overpriced DLC even at launch. Not to mention EA cant even keep its servers up long enough for me to get on and play. When I was able to play (for 20min) it didnt save and I have to start over.
    Servers for this game will go down in a few years making it unplayable. TERRIBLE customer service. EA is a joke.    … Expand
  13. asy8492
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    Simcity has always been a single player game and out of numerous generation it has been through, this is by far the WORST one ever. No doubt gameplay is absolutely fun and better but the only drawback is due to the DRM. If EA think DRM can keep games from being pirated, well think again. You're being a scumbag to enforce DRM games at such a high cost but in turn provide the worst servicesSimcity has always been a single player game and out of numerous generation it has been through, this is by far the WORST one ever. No doubt gameplay is absolutely fun and better but the only drawback is due to the DRM. If EA think DRM can keep games from being pirated, well think again. You're being a scumbag to enforce DRM games at such a high cost but in turn provide the worst services ever. Shame on you EA. If you were a car I'd be smashing you with a baseball bat by now. I expected a better services with $80 but what I get is garbage.… Expand
  14. Celarion
    Mar 7, 2013
    0
    The game's been out for 2 days. In the 6 hours I've been trying, I haven't even been able to get into the tutorial level because of server issues.

    Poor form, EA.
  15. Daniel1313
    Mar 6, 2013
    0
    3 Days into launch and I still cant play, this is embarrassing!!!! Day one DLC? Does it include an add-on that will make this game actually work? It really kills me that such a great game has been ruined. I will be looking for a refund for the first time....ever...
  16. ccwalpha
    Mar 26, 2013
    1
    So, i`m rewriting my review.
    After the server issues get fixed, i finally find the real problems with the game:
    Traffic problem cannot be solved after your city gets really big. The map size is awful (about 5 miles x 5 miles). There is no terraform tool Not only the map size is small but some terrains have another waste of space with rivers, sea and mountains. From time to time your    So, i`m rewriting my review.
    After the server issues get fixed, i finally find the real problems with the game:
    Traffic problem cannot be solved after your city gets really big.
    The map size is awful (about 5 miles x 5 miles).
    There is no terraform tool
    Not only the map size is small but some terrains have another waste of space with rivers, sea and mountains.
    From time to time your city is striked with disasters, and every town that i create a nuclear plant, the giant monster always attack and strikes right on my plant, wasting half my city.
    The zombies occupies almost all residencies, and you start losing money quick, because you have do demolish everything they infected, and you lost works, and your power plant stop working, and the caos begins....

    In other words: this is no simulation game, this is a very frustrate, small neighborhood simulator...    … Expand
  17. Orctownorc
    Aug 24, 2013
    5
    EA is a business that seems to want to destroy its own business. Which other games publisherhas such a perfect ability of smelling out what their customers like and then going and doing the EXACT opposite. What other company is as loathed as EA, in an industry where the customers actually want to love them but can't???? Obsessed with their need for Origins to be successful, obsessed aboutEA is a business that seems to want to destroy its own business. Which other games publisherhas such a perfect ability of smelling out what their customers like and then going and doing the EXACT opposite. What other company is as loathed as EA, in an industry where the customers actually want to love them but can't???? Obsessed with their need for Origins to be successful, obsessed about piracy, which is irrelevant in a world where the number of happy paying customers is booming, obsessed about getting as much blood from a stone as they can with DLC and micro-transactions, EA corporate apparently spends zero time thinking about games, the gamer of the gaming experience. EA seems to be rendered insane by its own greed. It has a genius for destroying games and the fun of gaming. And by all appearances there is no one with any power or control in EA who actually CARES about this either. Look at the millions and millions they blow on advertising! Look at the way gameplay and game fun and game design considerations stagnate or go backwards and get worse! What's wrong with this company? Why are the fools crashing the ships into the rocks NOT getting sacked? The answer can only be that the rot is coming from the very top. It's the EA executives who are making this company a joke. These are obviously men with big egos who never actually play games, and feel an innate contempt for gamers, indeed for games. Gamers should seriously boycott the products of this company, because it's evident from the long string of ruined franchises and studios EA has destroyed in the past 2 years that this company represents a DISEASED corporate culture that will obviously continue so long as the corporate machine is making revenue. Until EA starts taking significant financial losses on their horribly skewed 'games' they have no real reason to change what they are doing. This game is a horrible warning sign of how EA hopes to suck gamers into a DLC-addled, micro-transaction infested, pay-to-play, pay to win, charge by the month toll booth on our lives. They have so much contempt for games and gamers that they even try to chain us to their machine with BAD games. Like we are DUMB enough to allow it. The answer is to say NO. Don't buy their games. Score bomb their games. Don't support these people. EVER. Buy from companies with a better philosphy and with more love for the art and fun that represent gaming at its best. Starve the beast. EA is truly, really, deeply SICK. The shareholders need to replace the entire executive of the business with people who actually, know, love, understand and live for making good games. A company with the financial resources to be an industry leader should be an industry leader. Right now they are wasting and losing billions in potential revenue. They are not only losing-out in terms of game design, creativity and popularity, they are missing BILLIONS in revenue. They are a bad publisher and a BAD business model. Dozens of corporate shills in suits with no understanding of games, gaming or gamers need to be permanently retired, starting with ALL their present executives. A Sim City in 2013 should have been a blow-your mind awesome experience not only in the dimensions of cartoon world creation, but also in hyper-real SERIOUS civic engineering. It could have and should have been not only a toy, but a platform that could be used by architects and engineers to mock up real-world projects. Instead of investing in a state of the art engine however, EA blew its budget on hookers and blow again: AS ALWAYS: giving us a sad reboot of a 1997 experience on the back of a vast, wasted advertising budget. Casuals don't care and will get their kicks elsewhere. The hardcore knowingly laugh. Why do these fools make games for 12 year old, and hope to use DLC and micro transactions to get kids to hit their folks with the credit card? Does no-one with authority in EA have the slightest interest in ACTUALLY MAKING GOOD STATE OF THE ART SOFTWARE? If they stopped trying so hard to work angles with DLC and such and just made plain awesome games they would double their profits in 12 months and start to regain some of the good will they have so steadily squandered in the past three years! SACK the present boss and reset your agenda !

    THE GROT REVIEW CRITERIA: After a long time writing reviews like an anus, think its time to set a few bad habits straight: Stop insulting designers. Show some respect for the design process and getting games in circulation. Hence (1) No Red scores. (2) Game scores as follows: Bad Game 5/10. Poor Game 6/10. Mediocre Game: 7/10. Good Game 8/10. Great game 9/10. Stella Game 10/10. To get 10/10 it must be a game that can be (theoretically) play-able for 1000+ hours. Not only great but near endless fun. Games may be bad or poor but making them should earn respect. Thus even the worst POS will still be a 5/10. 0/10 no longer exists in my vocabulary. Yellow is the new red. For the sake o    … Expand
  18. changfong
    Mar 7, 2013
    0
    How on earth can they not learn from the debacle that is Diablo 3? And for a game that requires thousands of people to be online at one time, it is almost criminal for them not to ramp up their server from day one.
  19. Bunker
    Mar 5, 2013
    2
    PROS: Fresh look for a good classic, resources or speciality services, shared goals within game, on line play.

    CONS: DRM tech (for such a "unpopular" game, based on EA's preparedness level), SC Veterans will miss a single player mode, EA's support structure was not scaled appropriately for this games data/connection requirements and/or the demand thereof. Im not sure what type of    PROS: Fresh look for a good classic, resources or speciality services, shared goals within game, on line play.

    CONS: DRM tech (for such a "unpopular" game, based on EA's preparedness level), SC Veterans will miss a single player mode, EA's support structure was not scaled appropriately for this games data/connection requirements and/or the demand thereof.

    Im not sure what type of this latest title the Critics got a taste of, but I assure you, it wasn't the one that consumers beta tested or paid for. Finally, with all that can go wrong(and has) with games that have gone this route, I'm not even sure if you can call this a game at this stage.....maybe software or program as a game is fundamentally redundant if it cannot be played and just merely stared at, in awestruck disappointment.    … Expand
  20. lzk222
    Mar 6, 2013
    0
    I want my money back. I don't how care how beautiful or complex the game looks. If it doesn't work then these things are irrelevant! EA has alienated many SimCity fans including myself. I hope they have learned a lesson from this. Oh, and since I am already at it here's another complaint. Nix DRM! This is an absurd element to have in this kind of a game. Make multiplayer games optional andI want my money back. I don't how care how beautiful or complex the game looks. If it doesn't work then these things are irrelevant! EA has alienated many SimCity fans including myself. I hope they have learned a lesson from this. Oh, and since I am already at it here's another complaint. Nix DRM! This is an absurd element to have in this kind of a game. Make multiplayer games optional and provide users with optional updates and patches, like in the past. What happened to the emphasis on personal choice in the SimCity franchise philosophy anyways? Went down the drain with EA's fascist republic of gaming business model, I guess.… Expand
  21. Emulous
    Mar 7, 2013
    0
    I think everything has been said, that needs to be said. Releasing a game in this state is a disgrace and a punch in the groin to all games and consumers alike. People should return their games and ask for a full refund and not let EA get away with it.
  22. twesterm
    Mar 6, 2013
    0
    Hard to write a review for a game I can't play. Even on available servers every time I try to claim a city I get an error message.

    I was able to play about an hour (which was mostly the tutorial) on launch day and since then I haven't been to resume my single player region and city (due to the server being full) and I haven't been able to start a new city.
  23. WWickedRevenge
    Mar 11, 2013
    3
    I'm going to ignore the server login issues, however once you are in the game you do run out of space quite fast, again not a problem as you increase density. The major issue I have with this game is that you need to cannibalise your city to provide services such as water, power, recycling, etc. Everything takes up more and more space the trading HQ takes upwards to two big city blocks.I'm going to ignore the server login issues, however once you are in the game you do run out of space quite fast, again not a problem as you increase density. The major issue I have with this game is that you need to cannibalise your city to provide services such as water, power, recycling, etc. Everything takes up more and more space the trading HQ takes upwards to two big city blocks.

    Now this issue wouldn't be an issue if the various cities in the region worked together with any consistent way, i'm always getting messages that x city is no longer sending me water, but I made x city with over 1000 times the water that city needed to supply this one, sending funds or resources seems to take half a day (real time), and each of my various cities in the region saw our Regional Airport at different stages which leads me to believe large amounts of resources were probably going into cyberspace never to be seen again. I have also noted it appears you can only send resources to your closest neighbours not those further distance.

    Until ALL of Simcity's server issues are resolved I cannot recommend this game, it is broken and the long game just doesn't seem to be there, i've played three cities with a region population of 300k and a total bank balance of $55M (through electronics trading) and i've run out of things to do, I have no space, I need to keep my utilities in each city as outsourcing isn't an option, so i'm stuck just watching my balance go up, and my interest go down.    … Expand
  24. Ampanaron
    Mar 6, 2013
    2
    Yesterday, I was able to play this single player game for maybe an hour before becoming disconnected from the server; waited in queues for 30 minutes at a time only have my queue restarted at the end of each 30 minutes. Middle of day 2, my region won't load. It goes without saying that the release of this game is a fiasco, but what is rightfully upsetting is that EA has broken very logicalYesterday, I was able to play this single player game for maybe an hour before becoming disconnected from the server; waited in queues for 30 minutes at a time only have my queue restarted at the end of each 30 minutes. Middle of day 2, my region won't load. It goes without saying that the release of this game is a fiasco, but what is rightfully upsetting is that EA has broken very logical convention for a game of this type, and really gone out of its way to put its customers at risk of dealing with this inconvenience. If EA were a TV manufacturer, an airline, a pharmaceutical company....they would be issuing refunds right now. In the least case, they owe a very public apology to their customers who preordered or purchased before they had their servers working. As far as the DRM is concerned, I cannot imagine a poorer way to treat paying customers.
    As for the actual gameplay that I was able to experience: If I had to sum it up in one word, unfortunately that word would be "lame". Aside from the day one bugs, such as not being able to sell power to my partially-grown neighboring city, I was seriously let down by the abnormally anemic size of the cities and by the shallowed complexity as compared to SC4. I miss the graphs...they were the best way to show you how well you have done over time, and what elements changed in your SC4 city. The demand system is not doing well: I had half of the acreage of my city covered in middle-wealth families, a quarter in middle-wealth commercial, and a quarter in middle wealth manufacturing. What are the sims telling me? The residents say there are no jobs and not enough shopping. The shops say there are not enough potential employees or shoppers. The factories say there are not enough potential employees or "places to ship their goods", i.e, shops. So yeah, that is perhaps the most essential system in the game and it's currently half-baked. It is visually decent, but the animations are still buggy (i.e. sims jittering around as if possessed).
    I believe it is completely fair to compare this game to SC4, particularly as the developers have spent plenty of time alluding to the connection between the two. At this moment in time, SC4 is hands-down a more challenging, more complex, and, without a doubt, more rewarding game. The multiplayer aspect was a bold diversion from the logical direction, and has thus far not only failed to add anything meaningfully positive but has made the game literally unplayable for the core market who preordered or purchased in the first days. Obviously, fixing this issue is priority one. Expanding the city size is priority two. These two glaring issues need to be fixed before we can pretend that this game is worth more than $20 (issue one needs to be fixed before this game is worth a penny!). I'm not sure we're ever going to see this game being worth the $60 that so many of us have paid.

    I'm rating a zero, obviously, for the fact that on day two I still cannot play the game. If I were to pretend that I could play the game, I would give it a 3.5. Overall rating rounded up to 2.

    To remake a lyric from Team America: "I miss you more than Electronic Arts missed the mark, when they made SimCity..."    … Expand
  25. Blacknegger
    Mar 6, 2013
    0
    I'm (was?) a huge fan of the SimCity franchise. But in this game, i gotta admit: EA really *ucked it up. You need an internet connection to play a single player game, and sometimes you got even to wait in order to play it. This was definetly my last purchase at origin. Don't waste your money in this game.
  26. eahatescustomer
    Mar 5, 2013
    0
    Welcome to EA. Not only did they make a server queue, but if you miss the narrow window when you can click the play button. They go ahead and put you in a whole new queue. Often it is my experience that upon buying an EA game, I'm preparing myself to get treated poorly. EA has done it again with Simcity. This is an awful experience, and EA does not care. Just check out their twitterWelcome to EA. Not only did they make a server queue, but if you miss the narrow window when you can click the play button. They go ahead and put you in a whole new queue. Often it is my experience that upon buying an EA game, I'm preparing myself to get treated poorly. EA has done it again with Simcity. This is an awful experience, and EA does not care. Just check out their twitter which ignores all complaints.

    Welcome to gaming with EA, hope they stop buying good games and ruining them.    … Expand
  27. PRFR
    Mar 13, 2013
    0
    SimCity is the biggest scam in recent gaming history. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a5pof/did_ea_lie_about_theoretical_population_sizes/
  28. Nosferatu
    Mar 14, 2013
    0
    Regardless of the DRM and wait times hell even the lack of cheetah speed which I'm sure will be fixed. This is not a real SimCity it's a cut down facebook game charged at $70. You can't modify the terrain, can't even add subways, very restricted gaming space and the AI is completely clueless and very unsimulation like. EA took the SIM out of SimCity, but don't worry I'm sure theyRegardless of the DRM and wait times hell even the lack of cheetah speed which I'm sure will be fixed. This is not a real SimCity it's a cut down facebook game charged at $70. You can't modify the terrain, can't even add subways, very restricted gaming space and the AI is completely clueless and very unsimulation like. EA took the SIM out of SimCity, but don't worry I'm sure they will happily sell it back to you over time. DO NOT BUY. Think of it as an online Simcity Societies, masquerading as the game we used to love so much.… Expand
  29. strcrft15
    Mar 6, 2013
    0
    The game is completely unplayable. Can't create a city, can't join an already existing game, can't run the tutorial... this isn't just a launch day issue. This is second day. I didn't pay money to wait to play. Waste of time.
  30. simantic
    Mar 5, 2013
    0
    As I sit waiting (over an hour at this point) for the server to allow me to play this single player game, I'm struck by these thoughts: EA can force me to install Origin. They can force me to maintain a persistent internet connection. They can force me to wait for the game's release rather than preloading, despite how ridiculous that is since the game requires an operational server toAs I sit waiting (over an hour at this point) for the server to allow me to play this single player game, I'm struck by these thoughts: EA can force me to install Origin. They can force me to maintain a persistent internet connection. They can force me to wait for the game's release rather than preloading, despite how ridiculous that is since the game requires an operational server to play. They can force their DRM down my throat. But they can't force me to give a good rating. Zero, EA. You failed to listen to your customers and have miserably failed at this launch. If you'd like me to rate the game itself, just wait, I'm in the queue to play. Just 20 minutes left... and 20 more... and 20 more...… 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]
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