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tl;dr: small, unpretentious game that can live up to expectations - but don't expect too much.

Ok, so let's start with the negative. The game is more or less abandoned (however, there is a modding community that developped "avalanche", and is in the process of releasing "blizzard", two megamods that are de fact evolutions of the game). Several users report stability issues (I did not experiment them) and bugs (I certainly noticed odd behaviours, don't know if they count as bugs). And, similar to many citybuilders, the game lacks a bit of a purpose - and is more restricted in scope than a fully fledged city-builder, where you can, at least, play with buildings, transportation, utilities etc - here you do one thing, building a ski resort. So the game is indeed somewhat limited in scope. Some aspects are a bit frustrating - there are snow groomers for instance, but you don't get to actually see them, they are abstracted, which I also find a bit sad. There is only a handful of maps available (in base game).

There is no economy per se - your currency is the number of workers ("volunteers"), that increases with the success of your resort. You may or may not like the system. I don't like to micromanage, so I do : at the end of the day you achieve the same thing (accumulate resources to build more) without having to juggle budget sheets and so on. And of course, this is a citybuilder, so essentially an open-ended sandbox, don't expect an immersive story arc or even well-defined victory conditions...

Having said that, and if you are happy with the above limitations (limited scope, some odd behaviours), the game does its job well. You really have the feeling that you are looking at a lively ski resort (a North American resort more than an European village), complete with skiers, slopes, lifts, amenities... You can have great fun laying lifts and tracing routes and, finally, designing the crazy steep black slope of your dreams or the meandering green route through the woods for families. The graphics are not stunning but they are cute, the building system works as expected, etc.

Some of the limitations I mentionned (number of maps, economy) are fixed in "Avalanche" mod. In fact, Avalanche comes with 100+ maps and making new ones is quite simple, so there is no shortage of new content here. It is probably unfair to review the game in vanilla mode, as Avalanche (and, hopefully, the forthcoming Blizzard) are, de facto, the version 2 of this game.

So if you are a "serious" gamer interesting in a fully fledged simulation and a game that you will cultivate for days - go away, this is not for you. If you are however a mere casual gamer, happy to draw slopes and lifts for an hour just for fun and then do something else, give it a try. There is a demo (still available on GoG for free), which is not exactly the same as the current game (some graphics have changed, some mechanisms have been updated) but it should be enough to give you a feel for the game and see if you like it.

The official price is perhaps a bit steep for that sort of casual game, but if you find it discounted, it is well worth a few bucks - for the price of a coffee you will have a relaxing moments now and then, so why not chill out?