Just what I expected from a game based on a Tim Burton film - weird, challenging, entertaining and most importantly FUN!
As an RSI sufferer I'm pleasantly surprised at how easy going this game is on the controls, although being the Wii version I guess that's to be expected. Battles become increasingly difficult and challenging and are the one part of the game that I personally find physically tiring. The controls aren't quite as intuitive as I'd expected, I keep swinging the Wii-remote to fight instead of pressing B! Thankfully there are a nice range of cut-scenes which give the player a chance for a quick breather. But that aside, this is certainly easier on the controls (and therefore my arms) than the likes of Prince of Persia.
This is probably one of the best modern platform games I've played, and despite it's linear feel you can go back to earlier areas from the Round Room and it's many doors to get those elusive chests once you have additional characters.
A really nice touch is that some of the original cast members have lent their voices to the game: Mia Wasikowska as Alice , Crispin Glover as Ilosovic Stayne: the Knave of Hearts, Michael Sheen as McTwisp the White Rabbit, Barbara Windsor as Mallymkun the Dormouse and, my personal favourite, Stephen Fry as Chessur the Cheshire Cat.
Each playable character has their own special abilities - from stopping time, object levitation, perception alteration and making the visible invisible (and vice versa) to more complex fight maneuvers. My personal favourite is Mad Hatter's perception altering view of the world and his Crush ability in battle. Make sure that you collect all the chess pieces around the game, or you could miss out on something very useful as these are used to buy the extra abilities.
On the downside, the one truly annoying aspect of this game is that if you are not quite in the right position you can't always use your special skills - quite often you end up making yourself invisible rather than the object you were trying to vanish, very frustrating in battles. And Alice is no help whatsoever in battles, merely pointing out the obvious and failing to hide well.
Overall a graphically stunning game, with a good gameplay and what seem to be fairly standard controls (feels very much like the Harry Potter games, although that's probably why I keep swinging the Wii-remote!). The animators have captured the characters mannerisms so well that despite the voice you can still imagine Hatter is Johnny Depp and the Red Queen is Helena Bonham-Carter. This game is not only fun and entertaining, but exercises the mind with some of it's puzzles.
Great fun if you like platform games that are quirky and dark. This game can be played solo, or with a friend in collaborative play - although I haven't given this a try yet, so can't comment on how good or bad this is.