I do love this game, and it has probably become my favourite above TS2, though I still have a lot of great memories from that game.
I only had a short introduction to the original sims as, by the time I came across it, TS2 had already been released. So it wasn't long before I moved on to TS2 and I became well and truly addicted - I played it far, far too much, used a lot of cc and mods (for pleasure rather than a fix) and even got into the creating side.
Then came TS3... and it blew me away when I first saw the open world and cast. But there was something that was never quite right about it, something that didn't draw me in like TS2 did. I did enjoy the game, but they made a mess of the sims themselves - the way they looked and moved always irritated me - and, of course, it was pretty much impossible to play it without 'fix-it' mods (thank heavens for Nraas). It was still a lot of fun to play at the time, but it didn't give me as many hours of enjoyment as I'd had with TS2.
I can't go back and play any other version these days. TS4 has too many aspects to it that I wouldn't want to give up.