It is NOT what you would expect if you're a SimCity fan of the past (which I am). This is honestly more of a maintenance style game (like FarmVille I would guess even though I never played that game). You do have a lot of strategy to the placement of things (as you do in normal SimCity), but it eventually becomes either a game you have to spend a lot of ACTUAL money on to progress through, or one you don't mind investing for the long and slow grind.
I kind of like it because I've made a point of not buying ANY upgrades or in game DLC's to better my city, but there are literally days where I can only do like 2 things for a few minutes and have no in game money or things I can do, so I just have to let it run.
I like it pretty well, but it's nothing like the SimCity I love on my mac. There's no real "building" to it like there is in the actual SimCity...designing stuff is not relevant aside from how you do your roads in a square grid, lol.