I agree with the OP. I bought this game a couple of weeks ago, and it is so boring. For me, I've always loved the design element more than the city management element. The one thing I love about this game is the Sandbox Mode. However, the lot size is so ridiculously small. I love that I run out of power and water all the time, yet I have no space to build anything. It's like if you built everything the city needed, you'd have no space for residents. This game is such a huge bummer. I also hate how you lay things in this game. It's impossible to keep things straight and neat. This is a huge misfire. On the plus side, it helped me to find Simtropolis and I'm back on SimCity 4 and having a blast downloading all the wonderful buildings created by it.