The game is nice but for now i simply cannot recommend it because the GOG version is very outdated compared to the steam version and the DLC's are not available here as well so either the GOG version is abandoned or is treated as some second class group.
When this changes i will update my review with more details on actual gameplay
Steam is regularly updated, but the GOG version hasn't been updated since 2022! The dev is still happy putting it on sale and taking your money tho... Do not support these type of devs until they respect GOG users.
Peace.
The game is interesting; however, version 1.0.22 is quite outdated. The current version, 1.7.6, includes new features and bug fixes. It appears that GOG has no plans to update it.
I recommend purchasing it from Steam, even though they use DRM. Steam offers additional advantages, such as access to new DLCs and MODs.
TL;DR: Urbek is absolutely worth picking up if you're a fan of the genre, even at the (already modest) full price. It doesn't do everything perfectly, but it definitely has enough new ideas to be entertaining.
I want to put the praise at the top here, because Urbek is really *really* close to being incredible, which makes me want to write a lot more about its flaws than I would for a game that was just bad. Urbek feels like a SimCity rewrite that replaces the city planning principles of 1980s America with something more modern, so the end goal isn't to cause a housing crisis by demolishing every low-rent building in the city. Instead, you're encouraged to build particular neighbourhoods that satisfy the needs of other nearby neighbourhoods while also giving you points towards unlocking useful ploppables. The end result is that it's possible to build something that feels much more like a real city in Urbek, with different parts of the city having a distinct character, and the game also has amazing "sunny blue skies" atmosphere thanks to some really tasteful building models and an absolutely bangin soundtrack.
The game's biggest downside is that none of these mechanics are quite fleshed-out or interconnected enough, and the endgame still usually devolves into trying to build as densely as possible to hit the objectives without running out of space. Once you have enough artsy neighbourhoods to unlock the last culture ploppable, those houses are now taking up valuable map space that could be a skyscraper, and the map is small enough that you're gonna really need that space. It's also missing the traffic engineering side, which is where a lot of SimCity's challenge lies. There's still plenty of challenge left, but it doesn't really use the diversity that makes Urbek unique (unless you're adding some self-imposed challenge because you want your city to look nice, which is definitely more rewarding in Urbek than it is in other games).