Like many others, I have played many of the Simcity games growing up and loved them all. My favourite from that genre was Simcity 4 and while there are some neat things about the 2013 version, there are many issues that really take away from it.
I had CIties:XL before this and to be honest, I wasn't really crazy about it because to me, it began to feel monotonous and repetitive. I can see that there have been some improvements to C:SDE and so far, I'm enjoying it. I think it's a must for anyone who likes building cities/being creative and there are some neat things to see in the game with a lot of replay ability and mod potential. The biggest issue I have is the lack of a tutorial, although that said, there are some very handy tool tips that come in handy as you go along. I am also finding the road layout system somewhat frustrating at times, although I had this issue in Simcity as well. The curve system is tricky and I'll have to read up about it. That said, I highly recommend this as it seems a lot better than Cities: XL (in terms of simplicity, as far as I can gather) and there are a lot of neat aspects of this game that will bring many hours of joy to all. Check it out!