I love this game and it quickly become the occupier of almost all of my free time (and even some of my not-free time, which can be problematic). That said, there are some issues you should know before getting into it.

The Bad:

The BASE vanilla game is pretty barren with little creativity to be incorporated beyond how you layout the city. Assets are limited and there are a lot of QoL issues with the interface and amount of control you have over things.
The expansions, while adding many new design options and freedoms to certain aspects, are priced in a way that restricts their access. All of the good expansions coming in at $15/pop means that to really get the best vanilla experience, you will need to drop $150+ into it.

The Good:

The community for this game is Top Tier and heavily dedicated. Finding answers to questions and other forms of assistance is incredibly easy. There is a plethora of content creators that focus on the game that are both entertaining and focus on a variety of aspects and approaches to the game.
As an extension, the available free mods for this game is ENDLESS adding both QoL tools that I almost cannot play without at this point (as it is becoming more evident as I play CS2), but also custom assets upon assets to really add character and life to your city.

This is one of those situations where community support is what set this game apart from all other comparable games of the genre. It is because of this I am not concerned about the rocky start CS2 has had. The community will be there for it as well.

I love this game and it quickly become the occupier of almost all of my free time (and even some of my not-free time, which can be problematic). That said, there are some issues you should know before getting into it. The Bad: The BASE vanilla game is pretty barren with little creativity to be incorporated beyond how you layout the city. Assets are limited and there are a lot of QoL issues with the interface and amount of control you have over things. The expansions, while adding many new design options and freedoms to certain aspects, are priced in a way that restricts their access. All of the good expansions coming in at $15/pop means that to really get the best vanilla experience, you will need to drop $150+ into it. The Good: The community for this game is Top Tier and heavily dedicated. Finding answers to questions and other forms of assistance is incredibly easy. There is a plethora of content creators that focus on the game that are both entertaining and focus on a variety of aspects and approaches to the game. As an extension, the available free mods for this game is ENDLESS adding both QoL tools that I almost cannot play without at this point (as it is becoming more evident as I play CS2), but also custom assets upon assets to really add character and life to your city. This is one of those situations where community support is what set this game apart from all other comparable games of the genre. It is because of this I am not concerned about the rocky start CS2 has had. The community will be there for it as well.