Loved Tropico 3 and 4, but this one is too simple. It holds your hand through the entire process: do this then this. New quest: build a rum distillery...even though I've aimed at tobacco: abandon quest *click*.
It doesn't give you the info you need: everybody's happy, so why am I getting rebels? even the rebels are at 100% approval...so why are they rebelling? Why are they attacking? What are the functioning areas of certain buildings, in fact where are all the useful overlays? There are still overlays, but not the ones that were essential to pay attention to in previous games. No, you have to go to the almanac and look at numbers, but don't misclick, because you can't click on the edicts and then on the almanac... you have to close the wrongly opened window (click on the 'x'), when you should be able to easily and quickly switch to the other 'tab'.
Where are the multiple apartment types? Where are the changing buildings(as they get expanded). I'm upgrading my buildings but they stay the same. In previous games the refinery with wastewater treatment actually had a wastewater treatment on the refinery visible when upgraded. A factory with skylights had skylights.
Lastly, why does the main campaign force me to work with two maps(one after the other, remembering what I'd built and where...ok that's pretty cool) for so long before it expands to more maps? Why can't I keep playing on a map, or save what it looks like after clicking a 'keep playing' button after mission success?