Well since friday I have been playing a ton of Spore and I have to say that I love it. Whilst it falls short in some stages, namely tribal and Civilization I think the game is still excellent. Of course the people who have been following it for years are going to have had expectations through the roof, those who actually expected the dream game where perhaps asking a little too much and are now sulking. I also had very high expectations but realized that the game was not going to live up to every expectation. When I played the game I did notice the shortcomings but was actually surprised with how few of them there were. You could argue that perhaps Maxis were trying to do too much, covering all bases, yet they seem to have a good enough grasp on each one to give each stage a feel that caters to a different style of gameplay but remains entertaining. Whilst no stage, bar the space stage perhaps, competes on the same level as games that are specified to those styles in complexity they remain pretty expansive in their own right.