Corruption certainly does not live up to all the hype it receives, but it still can be good.
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Story
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After Metroid Fusion, this is another Metroid game with an inkling more of a story than just simply DISTRESS SIGNAL GO INVESTIGATE. It is the final entry in the Prime trilogy that centers around Phazon. You start at the G.F.S. Olympus in your tricked-out ship with no explanation of how your ship came around to looking like that (not that anyone'd expect there to be one). You meet Castor Dane, the Aurora Unit, and three other hunters: Rundas, the Noxus-esque ice-master, Gandrayda, the mysterious shapeshifter, and Ghor, the intelligent robot with a detachable combat mech. Apparently, a virus is going around infecting Aurora Units left and right. The Aurora Unit on the Olympus was the first AU to receive a vaccine for the mysterious pathogen. Of course, the Federation jumps to the conclusion that the virus is of Space Pirate origin. What would you expect? Ironically, shortly after, the Space Pirates attack. Who'da thunkit? After this, you travel between various planets after learning of the Leviathan Seeds, which explains the meteors crashing into Tallon IV and Aether, bringing Phazon to both planets. First, you stop a Seed from hitting Norion, a forest-y planet with a somewhat large GF base on it. Then it's your mission to go to Bryyo and destroy the already planted seed, and to investigate Rundas's mysterious disappearance. Then it all repeats until the game is over pretty much. Story: 6.7/10
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Graphics
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The graphics of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption easily demonstrates what the Wii is capable of in the graphics department. If you are more of a 360 fan, however, the graphics may disappoint you. But at least the graphics of Corruption partially disproves the commonly-conformed-to belief that "the Wii sucks becuz its grafix suk lolz". Graphics: 9/10
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Gameplay
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Alright, gameplay is precisely why even when Corruption is horrendously overrated that I still give it an eight. Fanboys of the game, don't flame me for this.
The controls. Possibly the best damn part of the game. The controls are wonderfully put together and flow amazingly. They are very much so dazzling, though sometimes tricky (but that's mainly my sensor bar's fault).
The controls flow well with nice enemy battles; the game has a nice mixture of cutscene-based enemy battles that later show up as random encounters, then there are random encounters.
The level design, ultimately, sucks. The concepts for the levels mostly feel dull and used before, and a dull level design does not help that at all. A supposed exception is Elysia, which is the only planet Retro seemed to put any effort into.
Bosses. You know, it is kind of disappointing that the hardest boss in the entire game is, like, the third boss or so. Rundas. Bosses like Mogenar may prove worthy of your ultimate frustration, but any other boss, seriously, is a disappointing pushover. The only redeeming factor is that these bosses have a unique and special design.
Unlike Prime 2, there is no multiplayer, and truthfully, that's excellent. The Prime 2 multiplayer sucked monkey...things. Too bad there isn't much to do when you got every damned medal and bought everything in the in-game shop (where you can buy the game's soundtracks and such to listen to whenever your heart desires). Gameplay: 9/10
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Sound
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The Prime games soundtracks were somewhat known for having some chorusing men and women play as the highlight of the song; mostly tracks associated with the Chozo or Luminoth, however. Prime 3 has nearly ALL of its tracks relying on that "instrument". Now, I set that up sounding like it's a bad thing. It isn't. It actually flows kind of nice with the game's environments, despite that it doesn't truthfully say much. Other tracks are blatant rip-offs from mostly the original Prime (Meta-Ridley theme, anyone?) but apparently a few are present from Echoes. The sound effects are always impressive; nothing to comment on here. Kudos, Retro. As for voice acting (yes, believe it or not, this game has VOICE ACTING), it is mostly fine, but sometimes for any character and always for some characters (*coughCastorDanecough*) the voice acting sounds a little too...tried. You know what I mean? Like they try too hard. Sound: 8.5/10
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Length/Replay Value
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Blame Elysia for why Corruption barely passes the almost-required 3D game campaign length. If Elysia didn't take so long, Corruption could be wiped from start to finish in less than a morning. Sad, isn't it? But that's a good thing, as Elysia WAS the best planet, after all. As for replay value, considering the game's shorter-than-its-predecessors'-length, and its undeniable fun factor, the game has plenty of replay value for a Prime game. Length/Replay Value: 8/10
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Fun Factor
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Despite all of the horrible things I've said about this game (hopefully I didn't piss anyone off) one of the game's best qualities is that it's FUN. The gameplay is great, and the game is super-fun for its own genre, so what more could you ask for? They could've made the game 24-bit 2D graphics (thus lowering the audience's standards) and it would be a masterpiece. Fun Factor: 9.9/10
Overall: 8/10, great. Now many of you who adore this game and claim it is the best Metroid game ever probably skipped to this part so you could pretend my opinion is flamebait and then you would PM me a load of evil cuss-outs. Let me go right ahead and spit this in your face: METROID PRIME 3 IS NNOOTT THE BEST METROID GAME EVER! Anyone who says this either has not played the other Primes or other 2D Metroids, and non-hardcore-Metroid-fans only say this because it is the most accessible Metroid game of the generation. When the Prime trilogy comes out, everyone will be like OMG METROID PRIME TRILOGY IS THE BEST METROID GAME EVER and leave poor old Corruption behind despite it would be in the damned bundle. Wait until the newly announced Metroid: Other M. Now THAT looks like a game worthy of being admired. We'll just have to wait and see, though.
Ultimate Ridley out. With his flame shield. Booyah.