Big news! A crack is out and  it works!  Thanks to Nob Ody for alerting me to it. You can get it on isohunt here are the instructions:

  1. Install game.
  2. Edit the Updater.bat file so that each line points towards your game’s installation directory
  3. Launch Updater.bat
  4. Close the launcher once updates complete
  5. Your game is now up to date to the latest version
  6. Copy the crack to the game’s install folder
  7. Launch game using CitiesXL.exe, select language, and enter any random login credential
  8. Enjoy

I can tested it and it is virus free and works perfectly, the author has even included all the current patches.[Older update]

JDMans over at the Pirate Bay posted instructions on how to use the torrent with the Cities XL trial

There is like no way anyone is going to crack this because the security is just to hard, but if you downloaded this already you can make a 7 day trial account for it and play online for the time.

1. Go to citiesxl.com and click on the sign up button in the menu. it should bring you to a registration screen.

Ignore the cd key button and just fill in all the information for your online account and click the send registration button.

On the next screen it will ask for a cd key but just scroll down and there is something that says activate 7 day trial.

There, now you have a user name to log in with for the next 7 days and you have access to all the multiplayer stuff. Until someone gets a better idea il be playing for the next 7 days :D
[/update]

[Older update:] Forget it. There will not be a crack for Cities XL. There simply is no reason for crackers to go to the effort. The protection used effectively turns even the single player version of the game into an MMO as far as crackablity is concerned.  If you have a Cities XL torrent running at the moment, cancel it. You can either buy a legal copy or move on, yes yes I know “civil piracy is not illegal”, what else would you have me call it? I would suggest moving on, there is not much in regards to re-playability to Cities Xl as it is now, maybe they’ll revamp much of it, doubt it. Right now Monte Cristo has let their dreams of MMOhood get in the way of making what they should have, a fun and challenging city builder. Instead you get a giant ad for the “planet offer” also known as Xbox live style “online services”, really all it is good for is the global chat and trading “goods” . Oh I guess you also get a pretty map which is a bit exciting, until you realize that it is no more than a picture and has no effect on game play. Weep a bit and then move on and do something more productive, like say learning Japanese, or exploring the other side of the world. [/update]

I know that when I had troubles finding a key I check out the The Pirate Bay and Google to see if Cities XL had been cracked and released, that did me no good since there is no Cities XL crack even still I really wanted to play it.  Well looking at the web searches that lead people to this site I can see that there are some other unfortunate souls willing to hit the torrents just to play Cities XL.  Well I have some news for you, its not going to happen until a street release at least and liekly never for the planet offer. The current Cities XL requires not only net access to login but also a constant internet connection to play online. There is no offline so no hope of getting past the beta key requirement.  If you do want to play the game I would suggest downloading the client while you are searching for beta keys. That way you are ready to go when you do get a beta key and you can also check out the in-game music which is stored in “Monte Cristo\Cities XL\Data\Sound\Music\XL”, I know this because before I got my key I searched the game’s files and found the music.  So yeah stop searching for a cities xl crack, hack or leak and get back to looking for a beta key.  Oh and any Cities XL Torrent you happen to run across will either be a repost of the same client you can already get from Monte Cristo or it will contain spyware/malware.