Having played through Bayonetta very recently, revisiting Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is proving somewhat more frustrating than my first playthrough was, around a year ago.
 
My experience with Bayonetta's incredibly fluid controls puts the sluggish, cumbersome combat in TF:U in sharp relief. The game also suffers from the Lost Planet syndrome, where enemies spam you with attacks so you can't get up, eventually resulting in player death. And navigating the menus remains a torturously slow affair.
 
There's still enjoyment to be found in The Force Unleashed though. The presentation and music are terrific and the story's still actually kinda cool. And the combat isn't ALL bad. The more I play it the more I am convinced Giant Bomb's 3 star rating was the right one. Worth playing, maybe even replaying. But by no means a great experience. 
 
Hopefully the sequel will adress most of the problems people had with the gameplay but with Lucasarts having basically shut down internal development, who knows?