Project Highrise

This is a good game, polished, and it is fun to play. It deserves it's "Very Positive" rating and if you like the concept, you'll enjoy the game, I'm sure. Plus the devs/mods are active on the forums answering questions, even nine years after launch and that is OUTSTANDING service!
TL DR
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The game is FUN. But the early parts of the game are a SLOG to get through. Slow gameplay, no ability to AFK due to needing to press ONE button every so often, and no in-game tools to plan and help pass the time which can lead to frustration and costly errors.
The game's early difficulties quickly feel artificial as the game ultimately is far more fun than challenging. That creates a feeling that the initial time put into the "waiting around" during each new game is unneeded or worse simply wasted. This makes starting over a difficult prospect (whether for a new game or working through 10 scenarios for the achievement) and it can make a player pause and reconsider if they want to hit "New Game" or play something else.
But, if you play in sandbox and/or easy difficulty, you'll get to the fun quickly and not notice this nearly as much. If not, you'll have to sacrifice a bit more for the same end result of freedom in your tower building.
However, once you break through the profit margin, you'll soon realize that you can break the habit of thinking you must "paint the map" with a tower and instead let your creative designs start shining through and that is where PH shines.
Either way, if you want to build a resource management tower, this game is FUN and deep down it is truly worth the cost!
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If you are going to play Project Highrise (PH) at normal or harder difficulties with no sandbox, you MUST be willing to sit and wait and the let the game come to you. In the early game especially, but even into the mid-game, you will have plenty of time in the "Waiting Place" as Dr. Seuss called it. And the speed-options, while better than nothing, are SLOW!! Worse yet, while in the beginning of the game, you can't AFK to help with the lack of funds because you have to babysit a single button click to have maintenance crews do their job.
So while you wait, you are seemingly meant to think and plan out your tower. And that is important because PH will punish mistakes. And those mistakes can be physically hard, economically painful, or just really annoying to fix.
It is easy to miss a click or misjudge a build by a mere rectangle or two and this can jam up an entire floor's (or more) plans.
This is where the biggest downfall (IMHO) of this game is revealed

Unlike Prison Architect (another building game that uses this sit/wait playstyle) which has a blueprint tool you can use to outline your design and fill it in later, PH has nothing like that. So there's no way to check that your layout or dream tower will work until you get into building it for real.
This means that PH demands a lot of trial and error, while it can also be quite punishing of mistakes. The game has no problem letting you trap yourself after hours of gameplay before causing you to realize that a newly unlocked building isn't going to fit and your layout is messed up. Puzzles and new challenges in games are great, but here they end up feeling unfair or that they are meant to trick the player--they aren't I don't think, it feels that way though.
Instead you are simply stuck waiting. and that's the second downfall of this otherwise fun game.
You have to wait a lot to play the game. The first part of the game is TEDIOUS (and if you are running for achievements doing the early game 10 times it is spirit-crushing).
It leaves you spending a lot of time in the early "hardest part" of the game NOT playing. And then you spend a whole lot of time playing the game in the easiest part.
That gives a sinking feeling as you play. It makes you ask, "Why make it so hard to get into the game? The game isn't really that hard at all. We could have jumped straight into the fun part."
The difficulty seems artificial, which makes the time put into it feel like it was unneeded or wasted.
The learning curve is backward. Instead of gliding you up to a pinnacle and then taking you up and down through the game's challenges, it forces you to climb a cliff first. Then, instead of rewarding you by letting you use that knowledge to overcome a challenge, it drops the curve right back down into a grassy meadow with only the occasional hill or two to think about. UNTIL you fall into a concealed pit under the grass that you can get out from but again it makes you wonder why was that even there in the first place?
But that grassy meadow is wonderful. With money in hand you can build anything you want, create whatever kind of tower you want to design. You do NOT have to paint the map with room after room, you can build a tower that has architectural features and not just a big rectangle. PH shines when it finally lets you go run free in the game.
There's no good reason NOT to buy this game if you like the concept.
So, I know most of that sounds negative and it is, but the negative part truly only takes up 20-30% of a build. So why be so negative about this part. Because it is a LONG and TEDIOUS 20-30% of each build. It is more than enough to stop a player from sticking around to get to the good content.
Because this is not about skill (or gettin' gud), it is literally about the time required to sit and wait. It takes the wind out of the sails for a long time before it lets you really play.
So, if you buy this game you MUST be ready to sink the time into it to actually get to the part that has earned PH its great rating. If you are not, skip it.

It is a must for the one who remember Sim Tower from back in the day when "Sim Anything" was the trend.

A nice and relaxing game.

Great game. I used to play Sim Tower many centuries ago, and this fills the void of my longing to play it again.

So I rate this as top-tier in it's genre, it has all the depth an complexity that you would want it to have based on the premise - basically being a large building planning professional but then having to act as the infuriated Facilities Management boss too
It makes you grumpy in all the good ways for a game of this type, OBVIOUSLY your sleek plans forgot a few small factors that could completely crucify your intentions when it comes to operations! What I'm saying it has a lot of deep, inter-connected web-of-management decisions and prioritisation needs which is what makes this a really, really good management game. One of my most enjoyable experiences in management games.
I loved how you can make all the things work with a rudimentary understanding, but can make them work way better when you fully understand their functions, benefits and cross-stream relevance. I love how you can build progressively smarter - and more profitable - towers based on different user needs and priorities. It really does push you in the right way to focus on what the design challenge was - it's smart, thoughtful, detailed and nuanced in a very satisfying 'build this here now then get ready for... " kind of way.
Thoroughly loved this but then it's right in my current favourite spot, and its achievements are also gettable, especially if you don't waste time on free-builds and save that Monster Perfect Tower until you've done enough scenarios. Make that free-play goal your final personal Shangri-La-Shard and sit back with that final satisfaction!
Mods are good too, but be warned all usage invalidates achievements!

After I played this game, I started to critisize the layouts of the skyscrapers I go to.

If you played simtower as a kid and want to scratch that itch again, wait for this game to go on sale from its $20 price and then you can go for it.
This is a tower management game that allows you to build your skyscraper as an office building, as a residential building, or as a hotel building if you pick up the DLC. From the get-go the main warning I would give to everyone is that you cannot build the tower exactly the way you want from the ground up. All towers are going to start out very similar where you start with the basic stuff, and then unlock more intricate and high-end stuff as you meet certain logistics and requirements. You're not going to be able to start plopping luxury duplexes all over the place the moment you start the game, you instead have to play by the games rules for a bit before you get to that point.
Overall though this game is about 95% like sim tower, the main differences being the types of rooms you can build and the fact that the game runs fairly fast instead of creepingly slow the way the original sim tower did. Managing your utilities (electrical, water, gas, etc) were the other unique thing this game added that was not something you dealt with in the original sim tower games, but it is a cool aspect to have to take into account as your skyscraper scrapes skyward (teehee)
If you can get this on sale for 50% off or more and want to scratch that sim tower itch for a couple hours here and there, I would go for this game :)

I love this game. It takes me back to the days of sim tower. A great tower building simulation here