Ignore the negative comments until you've played it yourself... and remember, practice makes perfect!
"My first word on this - rubbish, last word - rubbish.... This game looks fantastic very nice graphics, however that is the only nice thing about it. Some of the controls are truly hateful, some are just not natural presses to make, for example one of the diving events requires you to rotate each analogue stick at the same time in opposite directions... what were they thinking??? As for the judo... no comment. Playing this game makes my wireless controller battery pak fall out a lot also. Some of the events are too easy, some are impossible. You can have a tutorial before the event but actually this makes things even worse as it does not explain clearly enough. In the Olympic mode I think the idea is that u qualify for a certain amount of events any given day ie 4 out of 5 events if u do not its a case of reload try again reload and try again reload and try again u can see a pattern here! I thought with over 30 events, all varying what could be bad, how wrong I was - a waste of 40 quid and a waste of precious gaming time!!"
Now, I will make this quick. Firstly, and it's the only thing i do agree with, the graphics are fantastic and every event has a 'real' quality to it.
The controls? PRACTICE! I've only had this game for two days and already I have improved considerably at every event in the game. There are only a few events (namely skeet shooting, kayaking and judo) that take more than 3 or 4 attempts before you become competent at them. The diving event mentioned above is a little "fiddly" but I got a bronze on my first attempt and I'm getting better every time I try it. The Judo on the other hand may seem impossible at the beginning but once you know what you're doing, it's actually very easy. In fact, in the last 4 or 5 games I've had I haven't lost once and I can foresee it becoming rather boring! The tutorial at the beginning of each event does its job and yes, for some events it leaves something for you to figure out for yourself. This doesn't take long and hey, isn't that part of the fun?
The control system is very well implemented but there are obviously going to be events where you must button bash (or wiggle the stick if you prefer) but as you will know from playing games similar to this, it will not cause your battery pak to fall out... I know mine hasn't anyway.
Some people will obviously be better at this game than others but the learning curve for 90% of the events isn't steep at all. Qualifying and passing each stage of the Olympic mode is not difficult. I only had to reload/re-start a group of events once and after you've completed Olympic mode once, you can do it again and keep all your stats from the previous game making it more satisfying and a lot less frustrating the second time around.
In summary, it's a game that you should enjoy at the beginning and that will get better through time and bit of effort and it's a lot of fun, especially with other people - either locally or on Xbox LIVE.