Social developer Mob Science has struck again on the game scene, with a relatively new application by the name of Magic Mall. First catching our attention at the tail end of 2010 and again in one of our more recent emerging apps lists, the new title has grown slowly of late, stalling just shy of the 300,000 monthly active user mark.

A business sim centered around building a successful mall, Magic Mall is similar to an older game from Metrogames, Mall Dreams. Using a cute and cartoonish visual style, Magic Mall does differentiate itself slightly with curious limiting factors and a rather interesting social shopping mechanic, but as a whole feels like something we’ve all seen before, with a simplicity that just doesn’t compete with the ever growing depth of competing social games.

As with noted Mall Dreams, players of Magic Mall are tasked with creating a bustling source of overpriced goods that most people probably don’t need. Isn’t capitalism great? Anyway, players purchase and place various store fronts within their mall to attract customers. Over time, purchases will be made and the player will be allowed to collect the revenue.

In addition to stores, players can also decorate their space with everything from benches to trees. Though the game is not clear on the purpose or results, it appears that the purchase and placement of both stores and décor increases a sort of mall rating. Presumably, this works in the same way as in Nightclub City, meaning that the higher this rating, the more customers come to spend money.

While this has all been done before, the most unique element to Magic Mall is a sort of social treasure hunting feature dubbed “Shopping.” As one might expect, each store can be upgraded to provide greater value. In order to do so, however, users must not only pay a pretty penny, but must also acquire a collection of items. This works as when users need a friend’s help to build something in FarmVille (where users send each other construction materials or parts), but that is only part of the equation.

While users can gift each other items that are needed to upgrade stores (or purchase them using virtual currency), they can also be “shopped” for. Players are actually able to visit the stores of their friends and shop at them every so often by clicking on the stores themselves. When doing so, players can find experience, extra energy for performing more actions, or special items used for upgrading.

Each upgrade also requires specific items. For example, a chocolate factory will require things like milk, cocoa, and so on (all upgrades require five items). However, those upgrade items can only be found when shopping at that same type of store in a friend’s mall. It’s certainly an interesting way to interconnect friends, but even so, can’t overcome the rest of the game’s simplicity.

For the record, there is nothing wrong with simplicity. However, something can be “simple” yet still be deep, meaning that while players can understand it easily, there are a lot of options and ways for them to play. That just doesn’t seem to be the case here. Users build a few stores, collect when they’re ready, and shop at friends’ places the same way. It’s shallow, rinse and repeat play with no real reward for doing so other than just doing more of the same.

A further difficulty is that players are actually limited in the number of decorative items they can purchase based on level. Limiting stores is understandable, specific items based on level, but stopping players from decorating seems inadvisable, given that this is a major part of gameplay on Facebook.

In the end, Magic Mall is technically sound, but feels very average compared to recent social games that both provide more depth and give more rewards to their players.