Cities XL's graphics are pretty amazing:
Street level
(almost) street level
A (relatively) new screenshot of my city from the top of a nearby mountain, on a part of the map yet to be inhabited.
Night's are great in the game
Sunrise in a downtown area
Besides the dark highways, it doesn't look bad.
Sunset over an older district of the city
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Another sunset looking towards the bay area
I don't love the daytime graphics as much in the game personally, but the view of the terrain is great.
Overall, I think it's fair to say I'm pretty impressed. I haven't even maxed out the graphics requirements either. Then again, while the graphics are pretty good, I think it's pretty safe to say that the game isn't perfect either.
Looks cool, but where do you see these in real life?
Bridge failure, 100%. The bridge is actually pretty effective as far as its functionality, but due to the somewhat unrealistic height requirements, I had to make it at a weird angle in order to get it high enough. I'm working on a mod that will fix the bridge height requirements.