THAT!!
Without even entering the gameplay quality, POE in beta has its problems but is tons away more attuned to how things should be.
Anyway this simcity is has only sold so far for the SAME reason many companies take old titles off the shelves:
It is much easyer to sell crap if it has a name that has already connected to some comunity in the past.
SIMCITY remained on the solitary for years nobody understanding why. And to help sellrates there where many titles considered subpar or insatisfying like CITY XL, ANNO etc when compared to SIMCITY franchise.
Thats why the sells are good and its also why the comunity is raging because this simcity is totally inferior to that was expected. DRM is only an excuse, a good one, but behind it, it hides tons of stupid concept decisions.