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Second are the contracts: all your contracts last five days. The length of the contract isn’t the issue, it’s the nonnegotiable length. With all the contracts lasting five days, you’ll most likely be renewing or searching for new contracts on the same day; thus, every five days your city goes into crisis mode because you’ve just lost all your contracts, and have too much of X and too little of Y. The hassle of the invariable contract length is troublesome, and detrimental on a city’s health.
Trading with other players is great, because you can often get a great deal, and you don’t have to rely on OmniCorp; however, finding a contract is often difficult. Most people will throw up contracts on the global trading interface, which is great, except for the times you don’t have enough resources to honor that deal.
Often times you’ll have to wait for a deal to show up, or rummage around the globe hoping to find someone to trade with. Playing with people is great, but a lack of people means a lack of resources. 
The Monthly Fee
Now don’t get me wrong, the game is still fun to play both online and offline, but playing the game online requires a monthly fee. I’m all for a fee, if it gets me something I need. With CitiesXL the monthly fee gets you access to a persistent world where you can build your city… and that’s it. There are no additional buildings, no additional maps, or some other amazing aspect online; instead, you simply get access to better potential trades with other players, than the terrible trades with OmniCorp.
The other big issue is the GEMs. If you choose to play online and pay the monthly fee, you’ll still need to spend money on the GEMs that come out, and playing online doesn’t provide early access to them, or to better GEMs than offline players. I understand that the game needs to make some sort of money to keep the servers running, but paying both the monthly fee and the cost of GEMs seems a little steep for this game.
The Conclusion
I enjoyed playing CitiesXL, because it does what I expected: be a great city-building strategy game. Simulation cities are a ton of fun, and Monte Cristo did a great job of making it easy to do. The game looks great from new cities to large metropolitans, and micromanagement has never been easier in a city-building game. CitiesXL falls short when it comes to online play. I almost feel that the online aspect was just tacked on to increase sales of the game. While I think CitiesXL tries to go into the right direction with their online idea, I think the game fell short of its goal.
My Recommendation
If you love city-building strategy games, then get CitiesXL. Buy the game out of the box and play it offline at first. Any player can enjoy the game to its fullest offline. I’d shy away from the online aspect of the game for now, and wait until the online subscription becomes better for the money, or for the content. I’m sure GEMs will catch a player’s eye in time.
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