For some reason, people in the US do not realize that the rest of the world had been playing better board games for nearly 20 years. In 1995, a game won the Game of the Year award in Germany (the most prestigious game design award in the world) that pretty much makes Monopoly obsolete. That game is the only one to outsell Monopoly worldwide for the last 7 years in a row. Here in the US, it is still relatively unknown because it does not sell in Wal~Mart or Toys-R-Us. So be forewarned that this review will compare Monopoly to the best negotiation game on the market, Settlers of Catan.

Faults of Monopoly:
1) The game lasts too long!
2) You don't know how long the game will last before you start the game. It could be 2 hours or it could be 5 hours.
3) Players get knocked out of the game before it is over. You might get knocked out of the game after one hour and have to sit around for 1 - 4 hours. Not knowing how long to occupy yourself makes for a horrible dilemma of what to do. You usually willing to sit around for an hour if you have to but not for several hours.
4) There are too many rules so most people forget some of them and even make up their own. This leads to arguments at the beginning of each game while people argue for their own house rules.
5) If you are the last to go in a 6 player game, you might as well go home early because you won't get any property and there is nothing you can do but roll the dice and watch your money dwindle while you land on the property that others own because they landed on it right before you got there.
6) The price written on the properties are WAY TOO LOW which means that the right move is to buy EVERYTHING you land on (except maybe the utilities). How could a good game designer make such a horrible blatant mistake for the pricing of EVERY property?!!

My only explanation for all these faults is that the game was invented about 80 years ago during a different time. Monopoly could never get a nomination at a game design competition if it was invented now. My real advice is search for Settlers of Catan, read what people have to say about it, purchase it, and see for yourself. But with all of these disclaimers out of the way, I have to admit that sometimes this game distributes properties in a manner that makes for an interesting game (but only if the dice decide to cooperate on who gets what property). I also have to admit that this game was great fun when I was a kid. I had tons of time to kill so it did not matter that the game might take 5 hours. I also did not know there would be games of such better quality soon to come onto the market.