What I liked: The new Create A Sim is perfect... apart from no longer being able to customize our clothing. And the fact that these over-exagerrated expressions make the nuanced face we can now create into a distorted mask. And the fact that the body shape we can now create is randomly destroyed by weird weight gains and muscle bulking.
What I didn't like: Practically everything else. No more fertilize all with best fertilizer? Could the menuing for bait and fertilizer be handled any worse? I suppose if the menu choices actively avoided the mouse, maybe. Spoiling fish and yet no ability to choose which ingredients we want to use for the fish tacos? Loading screens to literally go three steps across property lines, really, you couldn't see your way clear to loading the whole subgroup of the tiny "world" (calling it a "world" rather than a cul-de-sac doesn't really fool us, you know) at once? Can't even fool with the inventory and queue up actions when at work? No sprinklers? No dishwashers? No trash compacters? Really? We already know you're going to wheedle as much money out of us as you can, there's no need to be grotesque about it. People have proven they will pay you for just about ANY crap you intend to add to the game, there's no need to make the rest of us feel like we paid $60 for a DEMO.
Suggestions: Loosen the purse strings a little. Give us a complete, enjoyable game to start with. Let us walk from lot to lot within a group without waiting for a load screen, or at least give us back the minigame load screens if we're going to encounter them constantly. Give us back our dishwasher, even if it's just the crappy cheap ones we had initially. A sequel shouldn't feel like such a huge step backwards-- we're not all expecting all the expansions and the like but could you at least simulate having put some effort in here?
Overall Thoughts: Emotions are not the new idea we were sold. They're not really far from moodlets, just dumbed down. They're not worth the extremely restricted gameplay, they don't add enough to be worth it. We'll buy expansions, you know that we will, so give us back some of what you're withholding when you patch the bulky body bug.
Seriously. I'd say you phoned this in, but even the phones are dumbed down to nothing in this mess. So disappointing.
EA Staff (Retired)
