TL;DR It is fun, but also pretty bad.

First the good things:
Building your city is as much fun as in CS1.
Many features added by mods to CS1 are now in the base game. Roundabouts, splitting roads, parallel roads and grids. I don't know exactly what else got added which was provided by mods in CS1 but I don't miss any features except three.

Which is also the perfect transition to the bad things:
TM:PE provided timed traffic lights, signs (stop, give way, ...) and a line tool.
CS2 provides stop signs and to some extend it is possible to disable left/right turns on junctions.

I mentioned earlier that roundabout are now in the base game. Yet if the traffic increases, it is better to build them yourself. I have not figured out how (or if) it is possible to assign two turning lanes for each exit. In CS1 I would have done that with the line tool provided by TM:PE, but in CS2 it is not possible.
So let's assume all cars take the same entry to the roundabout and 90% want to take the first exit. Now 90% of the cars try to get onto the far right lane before entering the roundabout basically making my 8 lane road 1 lane road as this is the only lane allowing them to exit.

The car AI also seems to not really be much smarter compared to CS1. Building a highway around your city with two exits results in most cars taking the first exit even if there is an extreme traffic jam. From a temporal perspective it would be smart to drive on the highway and take the second exit to reach your destination yet only residents with homes directly at that exit take the longer (longer in meters, not time) route. Honestly I expected better considering how it was advertised.

The simulation also seems kind of broken to me. I created a discussion if someone is interested in it.
https://steamproxy.com/app/949230/discussions/0/3877096256100127347/

I played to 100k residents and the simulation randomly stops. The game itself is running fine but cars stop, zoning is delayed... .Feels like someone pressed the pause button.

Everybody knows about the performance. They fixed most stuttering for me in the first patch and I am now running this game on Medium settings with ~40 fps at 100k residents.

In my 35 hours of playtime I enjoyed building my city despite the problems.

TL;DR It is fun, but also pretty bad. First the good things: Building your city is as much fun as in CS1. Many features added by mods to CS1 are now in the base game. Roundabouts, splitting roads, parallel roads and grids. I don't know exactly what else got added which was provided by mods in CS1 but I don't miss any features except three. Which is also the perfect transition to the bad things: TM:PE provided timed traffic lights, signs (stop, give way, ...) and a line tool. CS2 provides stop signs and to some extend it is possible to disable left/right turns on junctions. I mentioned earlier that roundabout are now in the base game. Yet if the traffic increases, it is better to build them yourself. I have not figured out how (or if) it is possible to assign two turning lanes for each exit. In CS1 I would have done that with the line tool provided by TM:PE, but in CS2 it is not possible. So let's assume all cars take the same entry to the roundabout and 90% want to take the first exit. Now 90% of the cars try to get onto the far right lane before entering the roundabout basically making my 8 lane road 1 lane road as this is the only lane allowing them to exit. The car AI also seems to not really be much smarter compared to CS1. Building a highway around your city with two exits results in most cars taking the first exit even if there is an extreme traffic jam. From a temporal perspective it would be smart to drive on the highway and take the second exit to reach your destination yet only residents with homes directly at that exit take the longer (longer in meters, not time) route. Honestly I expected better considering how it was advertised. The simulation also seems kind of broken to me. I created a discussion if someone is interested in it. https://steamproxy.com/app/949230/discussions/0/3877096256100127347/ I played to 100k residents and the simulation randomly stops. The game itself is running fine but cars stop, zoning is delayed... .Feels like someone pressed the pause button. Everybody knows about the performance. They fixed most stuttering for me in the first patch and I am now running this game on Medium settings with ~40 fps at 100k residents. In my 35 hours of playtime I enjoyed building my city despite the problems.