Rating: 
Summary: The best for a first time not so short stay
Review: These guides (Eyewitness) have something other don't, and Rome's is -no doubt- one of the best within the best. They let you discriminate in many ways and/or be as comprehensive as you wish... even if you should get another more specific one in some matter.
Rating:
Summary: One half of whats needed to really understand Rome
Review: We recently visited Rome for the first time and used the Eyewitness Guide in addition to Cadogan's Rome. Together, these two books allowed us to plan an excellent vacation that brought together all the small pieces that make Rome an excellent travel destination.
Rating:
Summary: The book is an excellent way to efficiently plan your trip
Review: My wife and I purchased the book in Rome on our first afternoon in the City. From that point onward, we never left the hotel without it. It provided great information for us to plan our day's travels. All the maps gave excellent detail by region of the city. I highly recommend this book to everyone who is going to visit Rome. And I have recommended it to a number of friends who are going over the next few months.
Rating:
Summary: By far the Eyewitness Travel Guides are the best!
Review: We used this guide book on our first trip to Rome and found it to be indispensible. The book is divided into color coded sections that provide a detailed map of each area and information on all its most popular attractions. It provides practical information that quite often saved us from making those ignorant mistakes none of us can afford on once-in-a-lifetime trips. Upon arriving at the bed-and-breakfast we stayed at, our host offered this very same guidebook for our use. In her opinion as a native Roman, it is the best guidebook on Rome. It was an endorsement that proved to be right on target. We have collected and used Eyewitness Travel Guides to Paris, France, Italy, Rome, London, New York City, Greece and Spain. All of them are wonderful and simply the best.
Rating:
Summary: Great pictures and good restaurant recommendations
Review: The pictures in this guide helped us to navigate Rome and to learn about its history. I could not image touring the ruins of ancient Rome without this book. The maps are good, but more information on how to operate the local phones with a calling card would be good. The restaurant recommendations were right on and it is particularly helpful since the restaurant hours are also listed.
Rating: 
Summary: good for site-seeing & info, recommendations not good
Review: I bought this book before going to Rome on a 2 month internship during the high tourist season of July and August. As a student, I wasn't going on a luxury vacation, but I wasn't searching for the bargain basement, cheap vacation either.
All the information, pictures, and historical tidbits for sight-seeing is very well done and useful. The area-by-area maps also help in planning a day of sight-seeing.
The maps in the back are a little confusing since they are spread over 10 pages, but they're good enough to not get lost.
My main problem with the book are the shop and restaurant recommendations. I would recommend trusting your own intuition for finding restaurants. There's quite a few very good ones where you can have a full meal for under 20 euro in Trastevere and near the Spanish Steps. For comparison, the lowest cost bracket in the guide book starts at 25 euro and most prices were significantly higher than what the guide book stated.
I would highly recommend learning a little Italian before going since it will make the shop owners much friendlier and the conmen around the tourist attractions a little less persistent. The language audio CD's are a buy since you can listen to them on the plane.
Rating:
Summary: perfect for quick trips and even more
Review: I recently spent two days in Rome with this book as my only guide and it was perfect. However, you could fill up a much longer trip just with the itineraries and suggestions from this book. I didn't even have time to hit all of the top 10 and there are probably over 50 different important sites recommended, described, and mapped out in this book. My favorite feature in the book is that in addition to the more general listings of restuarants, there are restaurants grouped by location right with the descriptions of the different sites. So, for example, if you're standing outside the Pantheon, as I did, thinking, hmm, it sure would be nice to get something to eat right about now... There's a list of restuarants in a number of price ranges that are located around the Pantheon, for example. Makes it easy either to plan out days either ahead of time or to make spontaneous decisions. Personally, I wish I had done a bit more reading and research before I went. The information in this book is not very in depth, as you might expect from a top 10 book. However, there's no need to tote along a history book in your suitcase, and this little book does give surprisingly good overviews and juicy tidbits. A tiny hint aside from the book, I found that many of the sites in Rome did not take as long to see as I thought. The Collosseum, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, were all surprisingly quick visits, it doesn't take long to appreciate and there isn't a great deal of detail to go into. Of course, this all depends on your tastes. I would have spent longer at the Vatican than I did, taken a couple tours. Also, be advised that the Sistine Chapel keeps weird hours from what I understand, so plan around it. And as for the Forum, or Il Foro Romano, nothing is labeled, and there are no official tours as far as I know, so learn about it beforehand if you want to fully appreciate it. That is my completely off-the-cuff, amateur and unsubstantiated advice. : )
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