Played it all day yesterday. Review after one day - Really enjoying it so far. Yes, city sizes are smaller. However, everything feels a lot more important and controllable - crime, garbage, education, etc. I feel like all those systems work much better than ever. I really like the education system where you can place bus stops where you like, in addition to how many buses to control the reach of each school to your specifications. The in game tutorials are paced well and guide you into more advanced things like property values, inter region trading, great works, etc. There are still a lot of systems I dont understand, but so far so good.
I do have a complaint about some of the systems that rely on the global/multiplayer aspect. They only update every so often and it can be really stupid. I.E. my Oil power plant ran out of oil, I turned on to start purchasing global oil, which is much more expensive. The plant still wouldnt buy oil because the "global sync" had yet to happen. In the meantime all my businesses shut down and people were abandoning and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to bulldoze the plant and rebuild another in its place (since it starts with full oil). The global stuff works if it snot time sensitive, when it is the system fails hard.
Will play tonight, can't wait.
