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Hybrids won't save you money these days, because there's still a premium price on most of them. They do reduce emissions significantly though and from what I've seen, most of the concerns about battery disposal is fairly overblown. Still, the only reason I'd buy one was if I did almost all my driving in the city. The electric engine won't do anything besides add weight when you're on the highway. The Civic in particular has no hardly any trunk because the battery takes up most of the space behind the back seats. It also means you can't get a 40/60 split in the rear seats.
Also, you have to keep in there are more than one kind of hybrid. Some use the electric engine to generate almost all the power at low speeds while other will use the gasoline and electric engine in conjunction to cut gas consumption. The former is going to work much better in the city.
My parents and I went over this all last year when they went looking for a new car. We wanted something with low emissions and good mileage but also decent cargo space. The best mileage we found was not a hybrid but the Jetta TDI. The diesel engine will go around 800 km on a single tank, gets among the best mileage at both city and highway speeds, we don't sacrifice trunk space and the greenhouse gas emissions are much lower than a gasoline car. Plus they also tend to have much better reliability for some reason. The Europeans have known this for years and it's just starting to catch on with North American cars. Until they start making hybrids in small commuter cars, putting plug-in options in or bringing the price down, they're unfortunately not worth it quite yet. I'd wait for VW's new diesels, personally, which they're adding a better particulate filter to.
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