Cities: Skylines II is far and away an improvement on Cities: Skylines and that alone should be enough for you to buy this game.

My standard for most games are:
Does this game have mods or need mods?
Do the mods add things that are a no-brainer for the base game?
Do the mods give a sense that it is fixing a "problem" in the base game

(I have more but for the sake of this review I will stop there)

This game has mods but in the base game, even before the recent content releases, it did not need them. The ability to merge roads cleanly at most angles is simply amazing, you can click and drag roads through other roads, etc! I would have traded arms and legs to have that in the first game.

The game is not without it's problems. Decisions were made about certain mechanics early on that have influenced how the game is today. I don't have any significant background in game development but I can take a common sense approach to this and make inferences about the games development. There are things that I think should be in the game or certain game functions that make me stop and think "why did they do it this way" and at times I seriously would like to pick the developers brain about it. I am sure there are trade-offs that had to be made or some of the things people were asking for just couldn't be done yet. It could also simply be that they lack the experience in simulation development or city building or whatever. I can only imagine with the experience they have gained so far, what future additions or sequels will look like!

Overall, from the baseline of "Is this a game an improvement over it's predecessor?" It is a resounding YES from me. There is plenty of room for you to have fun, building and design road networks etc. in the base game alone.

My Opinion + Some Minor Details

I don't quite like the game. It has a classic game vibe to it but not in a good way. The UI is alittle clunky and not visually appealing. I'm aware that this game is still in Early Access and would happily purchase the game again if the game improves but it's just not for me. Besides all of those things it gives me motion sickness and I can't say for certain why it does.

For those who are saying it's like Banished, take those opinions with a grain of salt. It's almost nothing like Banished in the way you might imagine. The systems and methodology for storage and gathering food and all of that stuff is much more different and confusing. It some instances it also feels like a mobile game and less of a survival, city builder, settlement game.

I believe Cities Xl games are slowing getting to where they need to be. There are so many new features on this game, like getting to pick and plot any kind of building you'd like. For example if you needed a certain kind of factory in your city like a nail factory you can plop one. Or if you wanted internet advertisment and so on. Its so close to where it needs to be but Id say this one is the best so far.