Disclaimer: My review is based off the Steam version. It's a great game, don't get me wrong. But if you're going to buy this or AirLand Battle, buy the latter. It does it much better than this game. Only problem is it isn't yet on GOG.
I absolutely love this game. It lets me do all sorts of things that you can't in the real business world. Want to increase the percentage of stock you own in your company, but don't want to pay top dollar for it? Shut down a couple key locations (hopefully you have the cash reserves to survive this, otherwise you should rethink your long term strategy) and watch your stock plummet faster than a child star hitting puberty. Rinse and repeat to bring your corporation entirely within your iron fist. Uh oh, during your little stock manipulation stunt, your competitor(s) moved in and captured market share in one or more of your core goods? You have two options, either 1. Cut your prices so low you risk bankruptsy if you haven't planned well in advance, or my favorite 2. Sell raw/semi-finished/finished goods to your ene- competitors and then either hike their price or cut them off entirely. If they don't have the infrastructure to take up the slack or are unable to secure alternate supplies, down they go. I focus on the manufacturing side of it. The retail side is too cutthroat, and the margins to thin. All in all, it's a great game. My only complaint is the lack of a level editor, and the limitation to four cities which you can't choose. I hate getting four cities of less than 500,000 people each, the markets are very hard to develop with such a limited base.
