A Cities: Skylines player spent years with the game, then left a brutally honest Steam review
A Reddit post drew attention to a Steam review from a player with 29,926.3 hours logged in Cities: Skylines, including 68.3 hours in the last two weeks.
A Steam review for Cities: Skylines is drawing attention for all the wrong reasons after a player with nearly 30,000 hours in the city builder decided they had finally had enough.
The review surfaced through a Reddit post in r/Steam, where the poster highlighted just how extreme the playtime looked. At the time of writing, the Steam client showed 29,926.3 hours logged in Cities: Skylines. Steam also listed 68.3 hours in the last two weeks, which suggests the player was still spending a lot of time in the game even after all those years.
That kind of number is hard to wrap your head around. Even if a big chunk of it came from leaving the game open in the background, it still points to a long relationship with a game that launched more than a decade ago.
The review itself, posted on April 11, 2026, did not read like a love letter. The player wrote that constant updates break modded play, said the vanilla version was too plain to tolerate, and complained that Paradox leaned too hard into pastel colors and awkward-looking buildings. Their conclusion was, “The constant breaking with updates has made this the BY FAR most frustrating, enraging game of my entire life.”
The irony is hard to miss. A player can sink years into a game and still end up at the point where frustration wins out. In this case, though, the review also says a lot about how heavily some Cities: Skylines players rely on mods and how much a patch can matter when a save is built around them.
It is a rough verdict for a city builder that has stayed popular for years, but it is also a reminder that time spent does not always equal happiness. If you have thoughts on the review, share them in the comments. You can also follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, and Instagram.
Cities: Skylines II
Developed by Colossal Order
Create and manage your own city without restrictions. Offering a deep simulation and a living economy, Cities: Skylines II will challenge your decision-making skills and allow you to build the cities of your dreams. Get ready for a new epic scale in the most realistic city builder - ever.
- Genre: Simulator, Strategy
- Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5
- Modes: Single player
- Release: 2023-10-24
- Publisher: Paradox Interactive
-
Age Rating:
PEGI 3 / ESRB E
- IGDB Rating: 62.4/100
