Tough one.
Metroid Other M is Team Ninja's take on the Metroid franchise and it's an interesting mix of styles. Interesting, yes, but with some fundamental flaws. The worst of these is the characterisation of Samus Aran. The portrayal of her is Team Ninja's attempt at giving the player insight into her personality and history but what we discover doesn't seem consistent with the «silent badass» Samus we've seen in previous titles. She delivers countless internal monologues, and seems emotionally attached to one of the other main characters to the point of codependency. It's a potential make-or-break issue, depending on what you value most in Metroid games.
The exploration aspect is mostly intact although the game does funnel the player along somewhat and doesn't truly open up until the very end. The hybrid third-person, first person combat is a fun idea in theory, and it recalls other Team Ninja titles, but in practice the Wii Remote controls work against it. The d-pad on the remote is too small to handle character movement in a 3D space and the switching between first person and third person perspectives can be cumbersome. In light of all this, ditching the nunchuk controller is a puzzling choice by the designers. There's a reason why Nintendo invented the N64's joystick controller for 3D games - the d-pad just wasn't sufficient for the new breed of 3D games. Occasionally, despite all this, you do get a good rhythm going in the combat sections, and you end up having fun with it.
The only part of the game that outright impresses is its visual presentation where bump-mapping and other effects that you don't see often on the Wii are used extensively. It manages to look like a game for the original Xbox which is what everyone thought the Wii would be capable of from the get-go.
Other M picks up speed quite a bit near the end and there are some exciting moments but the game is simply not worth the price of a full game, especially when a game like Shadow Complex exists and can be bought for a fraction of the price on Xbox Live Arcade. It's the natural game to compare this to, and it's a better game in every way.
