While I enjoy new games immensely, and always try to find the best points about each game, it isn't often that I find a game that REALLY knocks my socks off. "Suburbia" is one of those games that press all the right buttons.The heart of this game is drafting tiles from the market and placing them in your suburb where they will be the most beneficial, growing your income, reputation, and population. Each tile has a price, and the marketplace adds on a surcharge that begins at $10 for new tiles, and decreases as tiles remain unsold. Waiting for a tile means you can get it cheaper, but can be risky if other players want it (or at least know that YOU want it). You can also use any tile in the marketplace as a `Lake', by turning it over and paying only the surcharge value.There are four main categories of tiles - residential, civic, industrial, and commercial - and many different tiles within those categories. (For example, residential tiles include Suburbs, Apartments, Mobile Home parks, Homeowner Associations, etc.) They also are separated into A, B, and C groups. The `A' tiles enter the market in the early game, they're cheap and somewhat basic. Then the `B' tiles come in, and finally `C' towards the end of the game - these being the most expensive and powerful. This gives the game a natural flow. Where (and even WHEN) you place a tile really matters. Placing a Freeway next to a residential area? Not good! Place it next to a commercial area? GOOD!! The tiles usually make "real-world" sense, meaning that tiles like `Landfill' will get your town some income, but trying to build next to it won't be an easy sell.In addition to the victory condition of having the biggest population at the end of the game, there are also public and private goals. These goals are pretty straightforward, such as `Most residential tiles', `Least Money', `Most Lakes', etc. One public goal per player is revealed at the beginning of the game, and players compete for these openly. Each person also has a private goal that only he knows, and gains the bonus if he attains it. The bonuses with these public and private goals are additional population, and can make a world of difference in your final score!While there's no `conflict' with other players (i.e. trashing their neighborhood), there is plenty of indirect interaction. Buying a fast food restaurant in your suburb can have a negative impact on their fancy restaurant. Or if they've already built all the restaurants, you can share in their fortune by building a farm or a slaughterhouse that supplies them with food! Very sly, indeed! University: $15 plus surcharge...turning the University into a Lake before your opponent can get his hands on it: Pricelss!!!The game is well-made and attractive, and there are PLENTY of extra tiles (both property tiles and Goals tiles), so that each game can have a completely different feel to it. Even in 4-player games (the maximum), you use only 63 of the 100 property tiles. I played two games of this back-to-back the other night and was amazed at how different they were from each other."Suburbia" is a BIG hit at my house, and rightfully so. It is a rare find, one of those near-perfect games that come along far too infrequently. I rank this one in my `elite' class. Believe the hype...I'm glad I did!!!