A good blend? No. I would have voted "A Hot Mess" but that wasn't an option. The Sims franchise is in the life simulator genre, in sandbox style - and they can't seem to get either right. And I enjoy the Sims 4 for what it is, but I'm not blind to what it isn't. They have really leaned heavily towards stuff rather than gameplay, as someone else mentioned, things are opt-in instead of opt-out, and it's just a hot mess. They need to take a seat and really remember the genre they are in. Life simulator. Which means we need some peaching LIFE in our game. And then they need to allow those who do not want to take part to opt out. All it takes is a couple of lines of code to add a toggle, is it really that difficult? Granted, they were getting better with that, and then they go the other way - seems they keep zig-zagging on that one.
All the Sims 4 says to me, is that the left-hand doesn't have a bloody clue what the right hand is doing.