I feel like if they had made this the sequel to "The Sims: Life Stories" and called it "The Sims: Weirder Stories" rather than The Sims 4, it would have been accepted better.
The Sims 4 is an amazing game in it's own right. But playing it, I feel like it doesn't make sense as the Sims 3 sequel, even though it MUCH better than The Sims 3.
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It would be like if we got "The Sims Bustin Out" as the sequel instead of "The Sims 2". Like Bustin Out is one of the best Sims games ever, but it was never sequel worthy.
The game is being panned, but I still really like it as-is, so...
I don't even mind the lack of an open world. It makes the game much more active, since there are actually Sims all over the place doing all kinds of things. With an open world, you just have 3 Sims per lot and that was annoying. I'm enjoying going to a night club and there actually being plenty of Sims there.
The installation of Sims 3 has always taken me about 1 hour 
Hopefully it comes before then.