Customer Ratings & Reviews

After connection issue has been solved, There's nothing to worry about! It takes few minutes to get used to it, but after that you know how city works and you will understand how to become great mayor! the reason that I voted for 4 stars is It could be somewhat boring after few weeks of playing, maybe because I'm mainly first person shooting game player. I highly recommend you guys to try with variety of maps!

As a Sim City fan, I was highly anticipating this game and really wanted to make myself like it. Although the game seems like only a mediocre improvement over the previous Sim City, it will stick pack in many hours of fun. That is, if EA's servers were working... What ruined this game for me was the fact that you need: a) an Origin account and b) a constant internet connection, EVEN if you just want to play singleplayer. This game was made with an all-online design, so all data is saved on EA's servers and they are in control. Very frustrating that I am forced to play a singleplayer game...online. Skip this game -- even if EA eventually gets its servers up and running, the fact that you need a constant internet connection and be logged in to Origin is enough to make the game useless.

Why did they do it.....online only?! That would be ok if sever issues didn't exist. There should be at least an option for offline play. Not working on launch day due to server problems...I guess they didn't see it coming??

Let me make this clear: this is an ONLINE game, not a traditional Windows-based game. I did check the box before purchasing to make sure I was getting a Windows game, and I made sure that my son's computer met the hardware requirements, but I missed the fine print where it says that you need a persistent internet connection. So while I bear some responsibility for this purchasing mistake, I feel that the packaging is deceptive because it does not make it clear that you are getting an online game. They should have called it SimCity Online to differentiate it from the other Sim games that I have purchased over the years. BTW, I don't have broadband at home because I have an unlimited data plan for my phone, and would rather spend my money for mobile internet access. I don't understand why EA Sports has added the broadband requirement at a time when people like me are shifting to a mobile-only connection. I am so upset that I wasted $60 on a game that my son can't play at all :-(

Not going to waste your time. Most reviewers have already hit on the key issues. Just had to throw in my one star since EA apparently thinks that they know whats better for their customers than the customers do. Probably won't buy another EA game again just due to the fact that they are steering games in the wrong direction. This was an Epic Fail and ranks right up there with ME3 end game, Diablo III startup, and Sony "Change the way you've always enjoyed playing the game" Star Wars Galaxies ...Hopefully future game makers will learn from this. ALWAYS GIVE A PLAYER THE OPTION TO PLAY OFFLINE IF IT STARTED OUT AS AN OFFLINE GAME!!!!! Seriously.

Unable to play due to bugs and server issues. Fixes for these problems are supposed to be be in the pipeline, but you would imagine such a highly anticipated game such as this one would not have nearly this many problems, even at launch.

For Those of you who played the beta...well i thought the Beta was horrible, and glitchy. After I bought the game it was a lot of fun and not glitchy at all. For those who heard the servers were really slow and crashing all the time...they have now fixed the problem and loads very fast and does not crash.

This is one of those games that has been overhyped and lacks any delivery of suitable performance. EA has totally missed the mark on this "most anticipated" launch with the requirement of online only play. There is not sufficient server capacity to meet the demands and EA is already turning down features in an attempt to remedy the problem. I have tried to play the game for three days now and have not been able to get it to start with the servers. In my opinion this game and EA is a total waste of money. Best Buy should consider this as this is a reflection on them as to whose low quality products are being sold in their stores.

What everyone else said. -Spent the first three hours with the game installing it. - Left it to update overnight since two more hours wasn't enough time for that. - Restarted the update in the morning after the update froze. - Tried connecting to the game several times over the next 48 hours and have not once successfully connected to a server. Finally, if you are lucky enough to connect to a server, your game saves only on that server. If the server is full next time, you either start a new game or you can't play.

I've waited almost a decade for a new Sim City, passing up other knockoffs along the way. Because I believed Maxis would deliver a breathe taking new Masterpiece. With the past couple of days, my ambitions have been crushed with HATE. I'm so upset that the 1st time I build my city, my game client crashes and -Poof!- my 1st ever city is gone..Forever. Now I'm just left with City restarts in my join game queue that holds no meaning. I wanted that first city to mean something. That's my HATE :( This is an online only game, but the servers can't handle the community. People spent $65-$85 for this game and it can't be played.

WARNING - "SimCity - The Disaster" will go down in gamer history as being one of the biggest failures. Bigger even then the Diablo 111 launch day failure, only because EA Games did not learn from past history and did not listen to their customers who said "DO NOT MAKE THIS GAME AN MMO"..! Gamers who bught the download version are still struggling to download, and server capacity is a total fail.. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME YET..! EA Games has offered refunds to people who bought the download version. Bestbuy should follow suit and let people return the game, because it does not work...!

I have been playing SimCity since the very beginning and I was really looking forward to this game. I have not been able to play this game at all because it requires that you connect to their servers. THIS GAME DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO BE PLAYED OFFLINE. Even if you want to play a solo game you still have to be connected to their servers. They say they are working on the problem but it has been three days since launch day and I still have not been able to play. At this time I would NOT recommend this game to a friend.

I am a life-long sim-city player. I first played the original when I was in elementary school, and I have always been hooked. nonetheless...the old "SimCity 2000" still stands as by far the best release of this game. I was really looking forward to this release but I am super disappointed by the functioning of the "regions" or lack thereof and also the absolutely miniscule city size...I don't understand how you're supposed to increase residency in your city under the current size and certainly not with the constantly necessary expansions of schools, sewage, power, fire, etc...30% of your available land space at a minimum is taken up by municipal buildings. This is a total turn off in terms of one of the primary reasons for playing this game in the first place...expansion!! I do get the idea of the region containing many cities but it doesn't work well, very inconvenient and the communication is very poor, takes forever to load into another city-overall far too complex and takes away from the enjoyment of it- makes it just frustrating. One thing I do like about this version is the inclusion of the layer that one could make a "specialization" within a city such as tourism, etc.; but again that addition means you need more space to build these structures and takes away from space for actual residents and commercial/industrial. Maybe after playing a while I will get a bit better at navigating the region or whatever but for the time being, Im overwhelmingly disappointed.

I have been a SimCity fan for as long as I can remember however after purchasing this product I was expecting a solid game. The 30 minutes I have played the past 3 days was definitely solid and those 30 minutes left me wanting more however I have been unable to get online to play and the city I built for 30 minutes disappeared since they removed the ability to save offline. So to summarize you have to connect to their servers to play which are never up or flooded so you cannot play the game at all. In addition you cannot save since everything is server based so if the server messes up. Your city cannot be viewed.

Simply unplayable. Installed fast and updated quickly, but you must log into Origin's game servers to actually play. Unfortunately, I (and a lot of others) simply cannot log in. If you cannot log in, you cannot play. This might be slightly more palatable if it were a multiplayer game, but it's single player. Having the install disk in your drive should be enough to play a single player game. Terrible DRM. I cannot recommend this game to anyone at this time. May be better in the future.

I bought the game Friday night and had zero problems, installing, updating or starting a game. I hope that means the problems others experienced earlier are over. Have been able to immediately connect every time I have attempted to play so far. Love the game. It is very addictive..Next thing I know, I look at the clock and it has been 2 hours. Assuming issues are behind us, would definetly recommend to all!!!!

-Broken servers -Shoddy DRM -Game is dumbed down to the point of being no fun to play. This is what I posted on EA's Facebook page. This sums up my feelingsa bout this game: I don't know about smarter, but the game sure is a p.o.s. I bought the thing even though I was not thrilled by the always online aspect. I even bought the game in spite of how dumbed down it is (might as well call it Sim City Lite). This game really turned out to be a waste of 60 bucks. Chronic server issues (i.e. unable to authenticate due to a network error, servers being busy, waiting 30 minutes for a game to sync on exit, not being able to progress through an inane and mandatory tutorial due to random network errors) have been an ongoing issue and only justify my complaints and gripes about the always online "feature" that EA foisted upon this game. Combined with the fact that the game has been dumbed down even more than I ever imagined possible (not to mention the ridiculously small city lots) and I am afraid that this game is just too much of a disappointment to go through the hassle of trying to stomach my way through it. Between this game and Sim City Societies, I can honestly say that EA has managed to kill off the franchise. Even if EA tries to feebly pump more life into the necrotic husk that the Sim City franchise has become, the Sim City franchise is dead to me and most likely a great many of the fans that made this a money making franchise. Way to drive the franchise into the ground EA. Thanks for dropping yet another Cleveland steamer on the chests of the franchises die hard fans.

I never had the problems others complain about, however, you DO need a connection to the internet to play this game.

So I was hesitant to pick up the game due to the bad reviews I've been seeing... majority of these people upset are the ones trying to get a free torrent!!! I understand there were a few bugs release date and for a couple weeks but what game doesn't? All I have to say is, if you like the Sim City series you're gunna love this game. It may be simple, but I'm only 3 hours into my first city hopefully it will get harder. It's a great game people, pick it up!!!

Very addicting game. Never had server problems like many others have reported. Been able to play whenever I wanted to. Wish the maps were bigger.