If you like football (soccer) then you'd probably enjoy New Star Soccer. It's an indie title but it's mega fun and a real time sink.
Again with football (soccer ¬¬), Fifa 12 has a 'Be A Pro' mode where you level up a single character/player and end up playing for better and better teams. Also, Fifa 12 on the PC is the format of choice, better graphics, faster loading and a more mature community.
The good things about those two games is that I don't think you necessarily need to know a lot about football to enjoy them.
Even relatively modern games like New Star Soccer 5 which had some form of online registering are no longer playable and the company is up and running cashing in on the mobile version...
Planet Coaster from Elite has quite OK UI. Also Cities Skylines, but it might be the whole controllability and use of hotkeys and the whole familiarisation thing.
I would advise to keep your UI simple, with meaningful hot keys for commonly used actions. I am guessing there will be general play-through for most players, so make that easy to control.
And make sure to check out New Star Soccer Game for inspiration (both good and bad).
You used to be able to make a free account and play 3 matches per day on the pc version without paying a dime. Did they change that? It'd be perfect for helping you decide if you like it on the other platform.
It's a little different from the mobile version in that everything is real-time, which makes it more reminiscent of classic soccer titles from SNES. I played it on a free account for a few weeks and thought it was fun enough.
If you already have this game you can get your Steam key in your account page http://www.newstarsoccer.com/myaccount.php
I got NSS5 from the Little Big Bunch bundle back in last December and received a Steam key.