Relaxing and fun.
It's amazing to control a small island and you can do much more with micro management then in other games. You don't like someone particularly? Put them in jail, assassinate them. Send more workers to those banana plantations and watch the exports rise. Focus on tourism and rip those capitalist pigs of their money! Or give the russkies the finger and set good relations with U.S. - meaning you get more support in terms of money.
While I was a bit disappointed in the beginning seeing how small scale it was, after playing several hours and developing a bigger city, my desire for grand scale was satisfied.
Overall its an awesome game, as it allows to take a new look at things.