Not as bad as people say it is...if you're a Fullmetal Alchemist fan.
Also, if you are used to playing very high quality games, you won't like this either. There are some control delays and the fighting is pretty basic. But if you're an FMA fan, you love it. Ed can tranmute different items into weapons and use alchemy to make brick walls or make spikes come up from the gound.
The sound effects are nice and the voieovers are good. Too bad the voice overs are of low quality when you are in combat.
Now, this game isn't perfect, as it has lots of problems. First of all, the game's story takes a different approach to the first 16 episodes of the anime. Some may like this alteration of events, but I didn't. I forgot how the events happened originally and had to watch those episodes again so I woudn't keep the game's story stuck in my head (not really a bad thing, because I love watching the show).
There are way too many cutscenes. They are also boring and unneeded, which really takes away a lot of fun in the game. But there is some original animation which is nice.
Basically, if you are an FMA fan, you'll enjoy this game. If you can find it, it is $20 new so any FMA fan with a PS2 should pick it up. If you're not a fan, stay far away from this game.