Delixe: Just a thought but are you running an AMD card? They seem to have some trouble with Popcap games. Disable hardware acceleration and see if that helps.
Ubivis: yes, and already tried... even running in windowed mode. No chance to get this running :(
....if that's an HD Radeon before the 5000's you're going to be having problems with half of the games you try - the drivers are designed to cater to the 5000's and above, leaving the older HD series in the dust and the older drivers around the time of the older cards' prime had issues as well - but if it is an older HD card you'd probably get a lot more working if you go back in time with the drivers.
I have an HD3650 sitting on the shelf behind me that I give the finger to daily.
Fantasysci5: Is SimCity4 any good? I marginally liked the original one, but I wasn't enthralled with it. I kinda miss it, though...
It's looks like best of them to date especially with the expansion that come with it that allows you to drive various vehicles around your city.
I passed on it because I really burnt myself out on Sim City years and years ago.