Recent reviews by DuffyBox

Era-defining brilliance the likes of which we may never see again.

Pros:
+ Much larger buildable area than most other city builders
+ Nice graphics and music
+ Great modding scene
+ Good UI
+ Many large features from the DLCs are updated into the base game for free
+ Fun and satisfying gameplay
+ A great canvas to be imaginative with


Neutral:
• Most aspects of the city simulation are not very complex so the management gameplay is somewhat simplistic


Cons:
- Traffic pathing can be very frustrating, citizens drive unrealistically which can make avoiding traffic jams difficult without learning all the unintuitive quirks of the driving AI
- DLC is debatably overpriced, especially since many of the DLC features are free
- Initial loading times can be quite long


Overall:
Without mods, Cities Skylines would still be one of the best city building games ever made. With mods, the game becomes the best city building game ever made, by far (at least if you're like me and are looking more to create a pretty and atmospheric city rather than enjoy deep management and simulation gameplay).

A massive catalogue of cosmetic mods (both for adding new assets and tweaking the graphics) and robust asset editing combined with utility mods like Prop Anarchy and MoveIt makes it possible to have everything looking just how you want it. I treat this game as more of a canvas to paint on than a game to play.

Colossal Order have released several free updates to fix bugs and have been generally good at listening to the playerbase. My personal biggest complaint, the traffic AI, hasn't been fixed although there is talk of changing it in the future.

The base game goes on sale regularly and a large majority of the mods don't require any DLC, so it's been good value for me.


If you're looking to interact deeply with your citizens, scheme political and diplomatic schemes and solve complex civil engineering problems, you might find this game lacking. If you want to build an atmospheric, aesthetically pleasing model city then I can strongly recommend Cities: Skylines.