Konami tried to fix something that wasn't broke, and that never ends well.
Of course the most compelling thing about the game for most people will be the unique gameplay it has, which thankfully has remained completely in tact. The controller the game comes with is equipped with 7 keys and a turntable for which you use to hit the "Notes" that scroll to the bottom of the screen during gameplay. At first this is fairly intimidating, but when you start to get the hang of it most players find themselves getting addicted to it. If you have played other music games such as Guitar Hero and Amplitude this concept will be easier to grasp then you're average gamer. For the rest of you however, this is going to be an uphill battle, and most people won't find themselves wanting to put in the effort. The game luckily comes equipped with varying degrees of difficulty settings that range from Beginner, Easy, Hyper, and the unlockable Another. Of course the other compelling part of this game is the music, and sadly that is where this game takes it's biggest fumble.
Konami seems to be a little confused on what it thinks american's will find to be fun music. While Toxic and Funkytown are great additions to the song lineup, most veteran players will find the new songs too bland or too boring to actually play. I also doubt ANYONE will willingly play Celebration. Another downer is that the new songs lack an Another rating, even though most of them sound like they could have fantastic charts for them. This would be dismissable if they didn't have 3 of the hardest Anothers ever created also in the game. They seem to want to cater to the fans who are used to the series but at the same time they don't want to make it to hard for the newbies. So instead of offering a nice balance of difficulties they decide to make songs either super-easy or stupid-hard, and it doesn't really work out.
As far as song quality goes, their selections aren't exactly the most compelling of songs. Most of IIDX mode is comprised of OLD songs most players had almost forgotten because they were so boring, or songs they seem to put on every single japanese mix (V, i'm looking at you.) Then we get to Beatmania mode, which I honestly have no idea why it's in the game. They seem to want to make it as a super-novice mode, but end up putting 7-star songs in it as well. Maybe this would be a better mode if the song selection wasn't so boring and they hadn't decided to completely omitt Another difficulty. There is absolutely no reason for older players to play this mode except for nostalgia purposes since there is practically zero challenge in it, and new players would be much better off skipping right into IIDX mode where they can get used to the entire 7-key setup instead of being limited. Maybe if they put some more varrying difficulty in Beatmania mode this would be different, but they didn't, and that makes me a sad panda.
When it comes to graphics, the Beatmania IIDX series has always been one of the most visually pleasing of music games. With it's high-tech interfaces, ambient mode select music, and visually appealing videos sometimes it's more fun to watch people play then actually playing. This, however, is not the case with Beatmania USA. Instead of chosing a nice color pallete for the User Interface they chose the brightest purple they could find, and the once easy to listen to music has been replaced with a tune that will grate on even the deafest gamer's ears. Everything just seems way to bright and in-your-face for it's own good, and it's the first time i've played a game like this and developed a headache.
So, is this game a buy or a dump? I say it's a buy, and i'll tell you why. Music game players have been wanting this game stateside for a very long time, and unless it is supported there is a good chance we will never see a new mix again. Let's pray that Konami is listening to all the criticizim this game is getting and make some drastic improvements on it. Either give 5-key mode a varying difficulty or take it out all together. Give us more new songs that japan has, not rehashes of songs from mixes released years ago. Most of all, don't treat us like morons; american gamers should be given far more credit then you seem to be giving them, and that's a sad mistake on your part.