emperorpinguino

I installed and played it a bit yesterday, and was pretty satisfied. This morning? Servers appear to be caput and I cannot even launch the game (it briefly says "servers are down" and then hangs on "checking for updates" indefinitely. So yeah, I left a very negative review. The fact that it's unplayable right now because of the stupid DRM system is enraging. I don't know how you can even defend it. If it's playing fine for you, great. That doesn't mean it's working for others. I'm baffled that some of you seem to be asserting that people are just making this stuff up. I can assure you, we aren't! If you just bought a game and then found it unplayable because of a totally unnecessary DRM scheme, you'd be pretty mad, too. So don't discount all those bad reviews. Reliability trumps all. If you had a new Ferrari that suddenly wouldn't start, you wouldn't think "this is still a great car." You'd be cursing and calling the dealership. You don't get a chance to make another first impression. EA/Maxis clearly released this before it was ready for prime-time, and customers are responding. I hope everything gets fixed quickly, because the game was great for the couple of hours I was able to play it. Right now, I feel like I wasted my money.

I've been basically unable to play all morning on the North America West 1 server, even though it says "available". This is garbage. EA/Maxis need to fix this pronto, or I will be demanding a refund. UPDATE: I can't even change servers or start the game now. It hangs on "updating" indefinitely. All servers appear to be down. Anyone else?

There isn't a way I see to skip it from the main menu, which is incredibly annoying. The best solution I've found, which is reasonably fast: simply enter the tutorial, then quit is as quickly as you can. You'll still have to wait for the city to load and click through a dialogue box or two, but once you do this you'll be returned to the main menu where you can join/create a game as normal. Hope this helps.