The Sims 4

The Sims 4 may be starting to feel its age a decade after its initial launch, but a strong community and frequent updates have kept it at the top of the life simulator genre.

The Sims 4 is beautiful and charming, but its constricted structure makes it disappointingly limited.

The Sims 4 is both fresh and yet also predictable, pleasant, comfortable and rarely overstimulating. It's wobbly, and you can still see some of its joins, or hear the creaks as new parts settle into place. It's not likely to win over any new players, but it will satisfy a lot of its old ones. For many of its fans, it will feel like moving into a new home. They'll settle.

Once more with feeling: this is a fine if familiar base game with great creative tools.

Even in virtual worlds, variety is the spice of life. The Sims 4, for all its polish and cleverness, simply isn't very spicy.

While The Sims 4 is a good first effort that will entertain goal-chasers and fan creators, it lacks much of the variety and humor that defines The Sims.

The Sims 4 is still fun with plenty of cool tweaks, but it feels somewhat empty without much innovation

In time, it may prove the definitive Sims, the last gasp for the series or anything in between. For now though, while its primary changes are good, the trade-off is hard to recommend.

The Sims 4 has room to grow, but right now you're better off continuing to play its predecessor. While certain features were axed in the name of progress, those features were a large reason why many have come to love the series in the first place.

The Sims 4 is a beautiful new act in EA's popular franchise. Even with its controversial changes and missing features, I've never had this much fun playing with my Sims.