Here's my after action report.
Pros:
1. Unlike all the previous titles, specialization actually works. You have to build industrial towns, trade hubs, tourist traps and all, and they are designed to work together in a broader scale. I enjoyed building up the region with specific specialized cities.
2. This game is NOT easy, and it is not dumbed down at all. All they did was bring all the numeric spreadsheets into intuitive visual data maps, and it's working like a charm. A good portion of my playtime was spent in actual designing of the city, not staring at 6 digit numbers and trying to figure out what to do.
3. Multiplayer was gorgeous (if you are playing with the right people). I don't recommend playing with random people, but try to get some friends to play with you.
Cons:
1. The road-snapping zone system is not really fluid, and leaves a lot of dead space in between zones. As a result, if you play this title the way you used to in previous titles, you will end up with one hedious looking city.
2. Each cities are hillariously small. I don't know the exact scale, but it feels smaller than sim city 4 small regions.
3. I can see god knows how many DLC carpet bombing runs coming already. There's no region generation system, they are all pre-built. Meaning that they will start selling shit on origins very soon. Towns, plops, expansion packs, you name it. Expect shitstorm.