In my opinion, it is not true that the game is difficult and that you have to invest a lot to get started 🙂 If you're saying you'd love to join dCity, you surely like the theme of the game (city building)? Then take it like a real simulation and enjoy the game - no one builds huge cities right away. Start with, so to speak, small village :) - invest lets say 20 Hive (that is not much). And just play, expand :) with time you will start to understand the mechanics of the game better and get more involved :)
Do you understand what I mean?

Start by familiarizing yourself with the available technologies and card effects, choose your tactic and off you go :) 🙂