A great evolution as far as the Guitar Hero games are concerned..
The addition of the vocals and drums, as well as an extra note for the bass all work great. The drum set deserves special attention, for it's innovative 5 drums set up. It makes playing them a bit harder than in rockband, and that's just awesome since guitar hero is generally attractive for its higher difficulty and challenge. Not a big fan of the way you activate star power though, hitting both the yellow and orange plates at the same time is basically impossible in big parts of a lot of songs, but as you play the songs again you can build a strategy of when to activate it. vocals work well too, not too easy and not too hard, but didn't play them that much.. Speaking of the instruments, the new guitar is also pretty nice. The slide bar is more trouble than its worth, so you probably will never use it after you try it the first time, but it's a nice concept. The guitar looks awesome, very pretty compared to the GH3 one.. buttons are quite sensitive though, especially the strumming, and it takes some getting used to, also the whammy bar is really really long, and tends to shift downwards as you shake around playing.. that can be annoying.. Another new feature in the guitar is the star power button, which is nicely placed, and with a bit of practice you can use it very well.. i prefer tilting the guitar, and luckily that option is still available..
DLC is a great new thing for guitar hero, im happy they put that in. Some songs are alright, if you are willing to spend wii points.. most of the free ones suck.. The songs people make with the studio (which i will talk about next) are the best though. It's amazing what they can do with that thing. and not just famous songs ignoring copyrights on there, some real cool original compositions too!
The studio tool itself is really well made and complex, so if you have the patience and the skill to make some awesome music there, definitely use it! I myself don't have the patience, so i just browse songs other people create.. still its a great idea for this type of game. Mii freestyle also deserves mentioning.. its really not that fun, and you probably will only use it once and then not bother anymore, but its funny to see Miis rocking out haha.
The set list... oh boy... there are good songs and bad songs.. mostly bad.. its a huge setlist, and they make a big deal out of it, but its just mostly boring songs to play and listen to.. you end up missing notes out of boredom.. but its funny to see ozzy osbourne sing La Bamba in the last show of the career mode! There are a lot of characters in this game, both GH characters and ones based on real people. its kind of fun, but there are very few guitar battles!! they are the best, they should put in a lot more, and battles with other instruments too! drum battle would be awesome!
Well, not much else to say but.. if you want a challenge in music games, take this one and give it a shot.. and if you don't have rockband instruments its worth buying the whole set, since lots of new GH games are coming later this year using these instruments.. and they all work in rockband 2, so its really worth it!
Hope you enjoyed this rather long review, check out my rockband 2 review as well!