When I switched over from iOS to WP8, one of the things that I and many others found lacking in the native Nokia Maps was local traffic (I'm not sure if this was a problem overseas or not.) I always liked using Google Maps but as we all know, Microsoft and Google aren't getting along so no Google apps are available. There is of course third-party apps such as Inrix Traffic which I used in place of Google Maps; and as far as I know Google uses Inrix data for their traffic info anyway so it's the next best thing. But I personally like the Nokia Maps interface and OS integration.
After playing around with the phone a bit the other day, I stumbled across a way to see the local traffic using the integrated map. I was definitely not aware of this feature.