Unable to create your city at this time. Please claim a city again later

I was so close to not buying this game due to all the technical problems I've been hearing, but against my better judgingment I dropped $90 dollars for the deluxe edition. First experience with the game was an error message while trying to create my city.

Totally unacceptable - this is exactly why your users are upset about "always on DRM". Lession learned, trust broken, not buying another game from EA until it's playable without being connected to a server.