Rise of Industry is a great game with some flaws. I went bankrupt two times first, after about 2 more tries i bought all my competition. So if you get this game, maybe it's better to experiment and try different approaches. After all it is a game and maybe the best part of it is to interact with it's mechanics.

The graphics are gorgeous, minimalist and practical. If you ask me this type of art style is great for this type of game as you need usefulness more than effects and so on. It does it's job and excels at it so it's more that you can ask. Plus in my experience the game runs really well, the only moments it got stuck for a few seconds are when it was saving.

Sound design is also really well done in the same style as the rest of the game, its more useful nature helps a lot and it is pleasing to hear it for the whole game.

Gameplay wise is where it shines and also has it's flaws. The basic principle of the game is offer and demand. You need to supply cities with good as the city demands them and help it grow as it will demand better more expensive goods. The city might also help you in need or hurt your business if you neglect or pollute it so there is a nice interaction there.
Another mechanic that i found nice are the permits. You cannot build you industry anywhere on the map as the city must give you the permit to build but you can make warehouses everywhere and manage your logistics from there so you can sell your products. Products are organised in Raw and tiers from 1 to 3 and the higher the tier the more profit will make and also the more lower tier products will be needed to make it.

The flaws that is has at least in my experience are firstly the start of the game where usually i get at least one bankruptcy loan to continue and loans can really kill you in this game as you need to pay it monthly and in the early game it can take a lot of your income that you would otherwise use for research. But it is manageable and part of the experience otherwise.
After that you start evolving, but at one point you either get overwhelmed or you expand on the same tier and base yourself on quantity over quality. This is possible because if you don't provide to your city it won't evolve and the demand for better goods won't be there.

Overall this is a greatly enjoyable game that i can see getting hours and hours of gameplay into. It's fun and satisfying and when you manage to buy another company and get into making the logistics of the newly acquired assets it's a lot of fun if you enjoy this kind of things.

If you like OpenTTD and other tycoon type of games get this game. If you are a master in this kind of games you will get into it easy. If you are a newcomer and like the idea of a tycoon game but you always found them too hard and ugly you should also get this game because i can see it as an entry point in the genre.