Recent reviews by Strategy Nerd

It'll be amazing eventually.

After playing CSL for so long and loving it, I had incredibly high expectations for the sequel, and while it is absolutely an improvement over the original, with a deeper simulation and updated graphics, it definitely fell short of my hopes in a lot of places. It feels unpolished, with a number more graphical and gameplay bugs than I'd like.

That said, I have still enjoyed playing CSLII more than I did the original even in its current state, with deeper gameplay options and more to do than the original has without mods. If you have CSL1 on Steam and enjoy playing it heavily modded, then this one might not be for you yet. Otherwise, I think it's definitely worth a try.

A solid game, it seems fairly well-balanced and the gameplay is definitely rewarding. I had one or two small bugs and the game got laggy quicker than I would have liked, but definitely a positive experience and I plan to play more.

Recommended if:
1. You play city-builders less for the challenge of running a city and more for, well, the skylines. (& other design elements)
2. You don't mind getting the mods and DLCs.

The vanilla game is nice and especially combined with a couple DLCs it can last you a good number of playthroughs before you get tired of it, definitely worth the money when it's on sale.

That said, the mods/DLCs/custom assets are really what makes this game great to me, as they offer a nearly limitless variety of options to expand on the base game. You can get 5,000 different kinds of train station if you want, and there are some incredible modders in the community who have made some great tools for the game. With mods constantly adding features and a huge number of creators making great content for the game, there's not really anything that competes.

Even if you can't find a mod or asset to do exactly what you want, you can make one yourself. Having been introduced to the modding and asset creation community, I've had just as much fun creating for the game as playing it!