never played a simcity before so i cant compare
but i bought this game on sat. for $39 and it came with a choice of another ea title for free once you entered your online code (dead space 3, BF 3 or another one), and it said sorry for the launch, im guessing they had alot of problems
i had no problems, though im not a fan of always on drm, was alot of fun, seemed straight forward, tons of buildings to choose from, specialties, nat disasters, zoning, regions, i have 5 cities going on right now in the region, dont know what else but if you have specific questions, i can answer to the best of my knowledge, played prob a total of 10 hours this weekend
it was alot of fun, even the wife and kids were playing and telling me where to put buildings or tornadoes