Before I read this particular post, I had a bet with myself. The bet was: "City of the Damned" will be proclaimed ok, but somewhat lacking.
Yup!
There are people who absolutely love City... and in my experience, they're the ones who read it on a weekly basis. I imagine that, experienced as intended, it was pretty bloody exciting. But I didn't start reading 2000AD till a hundred progs after City... ended, and it sounds so much better as a plot summary than it actually turns out to be. Some great bits though - the "To be eyeless in hell" sequence is astounding, and about as good a summary of Dredd's character at the time as you're going to get. Overall though, it's maybe best viewed as a dry run for Necropolis, which takes the same basic concept - city becomes hell due to monstrous psychic force - and does it for real, rather than in a parallel timeline.