At the FTO where I work;
Generally at PPL level we strongly discourage the use of flight sim as it leads to a reliance on the instruments and the PPL is all about VFR attitude flying.
At CPL/IR level we encourage it for the use of NDB/VOR tracking etc, but in all honesty RANT is much better than flight sim.
Totally agree with papa600:
I would not advocate it was a training tool for professional pilots but for those with an interest in aviation it represents a remarkable insight to life in the cockpit