Definitely grabbed my sight due to the design. Enjoyed it for the time I played it.
I enjoyed the satisfaction of getting to such production that I was making more than I needed and could finally grow freely (finished with 84 people on the first game, pretty much could've gone up to ~200 easily). That said, on a second playthrough I got screwed over by the random elements (didn't get enough trees) but I got through it just by knowing how to play it already.
the biggest problem I see so far is the lack of options to customize the land beyond destroying your buildings (for examples as mentioned above, you cant destroy water tiles at all, which gets annoying if many of them connect[maybe even more usage of water?]), but as far as small game goes, it's pretty good! :)