One of the most obvious signs is that the Sims' thought bubbles start to contain blurry wavy lines instead of the usual "thought" icons. Or toddlers that want to go on dates; that's always a bad sign.
"the whole package feels like one of those 'death by a thousand cuts' situations.... It feels more like a minimum viable product than the fourth game in a long-running and popular game franchise."
Glic2000's comments