A very important consideration is that if you are thinking this game is going to be like Gangsters: Organized Crime, you would be very wrong! This is not a gangster/mafia game in the way you are probably thinking, and nothing like Empire, Gangland, etc either. City of Gangsters is actually a logistics and supply chain game, with a mafia skin. It has no gritty and violent crime elements, and is a much more light-toned presentation, even when dealing with violent elements such as the combat. But with that noted, I can say CoG is a very fun and addictive game in its own right!

The mafia elements such as combat, protection money, combat, etc are quite simplistic and very much not the emphasis of the gameplay. There are no prostitution rackets, no loansharking, etc, and the economy is majorly focused on booze manufacturing and distribution. As such, the majority of the gameplay centers around setting up supply networks and having your workers tasked for buying supplies to brew beer and then selling that beer, and much of your time is spent optimizing these trade routes. As you generate cash, you can invest into expanding into adjacent territory which mainly serves to just acquire new buildings and skills, which improve and expand your booze making.

There are some slight touches of roleplay in the game with character traits and the favour system, where building up a relationship with characters can open new social and economic opportunities for you. But largely this is just a means to an end for increasing your economy and by opening up a web of introductions, and characters don't have much meaningful impact beyond that. For example, characters can be related and that will give a little relationship bonus, but you don't build a family (in the personal or even mafia structure sense).

The mechanics of the game are certainly addictive and are designed in such a way that you are always gunning for that extra little business expansion or skill optimization, where there is always one more carrot-on-a-stick reward just out of reach. After a little bit of manual grinding in the early game, it's super satisfying to eventually get an automated supply and demand chain up and running, and successful generating regular income. But like all good and addictive resource games, you will always be coming back later to optimize the chains. Eventually when you have a full multi-product distribution network running, you will see your staff working like bees all over the city, and that is really satisfying too.

Because there is so much going on in the game, from the smallest micro scale of managing shopkeepers individual relationships to macro scale taking over city neighbourhoods, some QOL assistance would be great from the more tedious gameplay elements in the late game, and this is my only real criticism for what could be better. A way to automate the police bribes and put them on payroll would be nice so that you don't have to keep racing all over town when your empire is huge, and similarly for vehicle repairs it would be nice to be able to automate this when you have a lot of staff.
It would be also nice if the delivery planner was a little more intelligent, so you could set up more 'smart' delivery routes where your worker could assess what stock is needed for a supply chain, and be less clunky about overstocking his car or a warehouse with a resource that is not needed.
And finally, another much desired QOL improvement would be less clicks for everything. The game is dialogue menu heavy, and although you will be running back and forth repeating the same buy and sell tasks many times, you will find you have to repeatably go about 4 or 5 dialogue menu clicks deep to get what you need done. The first time you meet a shopkeeper this makes sense, but after purchasing stone crocks for the 100th time, its not so fun and seems clunky.

Overall, CoG is a real dark horse and a thoroughly enjoyable experience, invoking that 'just one more turn' style of addictive gameplay. I would recommend it highly for any logistics and tycoon game fans!

A very important consideration is that if you are thinking this game is going to be like Gangsters: Organized Crime, you would be very wrong! This is not a gangster/mafia game in the way you are probably thinking, and nothing like Empire, Gangland, etc either. City of Gangsters is actually a logistics and supply chain game, with a mafia skin. It has no gritty and violent crime elements, and is a much more light-toned presentation, even when dealing with violent elements such as the combat. But with that noted, I can say CoG is a very fun and addictive game in its own right! The mafia elements such as combat, protection money, combat, etc are quite simplistic and very much not the emphasis of the gameplay. There are no prostitution rackets, no loansharking, etc, and the economy is majorly focused on booze manufacturing and distribution. As such, the majority of the gameplay centers around setting up supply networks and having your workers tasked for buying supplies to brew beer and then selling that beer, and much of your time is spent optimizing these trade routes. As you generate cash, you can invest into expanding into adjacent territory which mainly serves to just acquire new buildings and skills, which improve and expand your booze making. There are some slight touches of roleplay in the game with character traits and the favour system, where building up a relationship with characters can open new social and economic opportunities for you. But largely this is just a means to an end for increasing your economy and by opening up a web of introductions, and characters don't have much meaningful impact beyond that. For example, characters can be related and that will give a little relationship bonus, but you don't build a family (in the personal or even mafia structure sense). The mechanics of the game are certainly addictive and are designed in such a way that you are always gunning for that extra little business expansion or skill optimization, where there is always one more carrot-on-a-stick reward just out of reach. After a little bit of manual grinding in the early game, it's super satisfying to eventually get an automated supply and demand chain up and running, and successful generating regular income. But like all good and addictive resource games, you will always be coming back later to optimize the chains. Eventually when you have a full multi-product distribution network running, you will see your staff working like bees all over the city, and that is really satisfying too. Because there is so much going on in the game, from the smallest micro scale of managing shopkeepers individual relationships to macro scale taking over city neighbourhoods, some QOL assistance would be great from the more tedious gameplay elements in the late game, and this is my only real criticism for what could be better. A way to automate the police bribes and put them on payroll would be nice so that you don't have to keep racing all over town when your empire is huge, and similarly for vehicle repairs it would be nice to be able to automate this when you have a lot of staff. It would be also nice if the delivery planner was a little more intelligent, so you could set up more 'smart' delivery routes where your worker could assess what stock is needed for a supply chain, and be less clunky about overstocking his car or a warehouse with a resource that is not needed. And finally, another much desired QOL improvement would be less clicks for everything. The game is dialogue menu heavy, and although you will be running back and forth repeating the same buy and sell tasks many times, you will find you have to repeatably go about 4 or 5 dialogue menu clicks deep to get what you need done. The first time you meet a shopkeeper this makes sense, but after purchasing stone crocks for the 100th time, its not so fun and seems clunky. Overall, CoG is a real dark horse and a thoroughly enjoyable experience, invoking that 'just one more turn' style of addictive gameplay. I would recommend it highly for any logistics and tycoon game fans!