Spore comes across as a fun, light-hearted game but once you get into the mechanics it is repetitive and boring.
Another thing that should be mentioned is that the game is constantly downloading new content, I have no idea how much but the default cache in the settings in for 2GB. It forces you to install the EA download manager, a useless program that of course will be running constantly, in game or not.
Cell stage:
Once you've played it for 10 minutes, you have seen it all.
Creature creation:
Assigning statistics to creature parts is a real let down. You end up just putting on the pieces that give the best stats (especially on hard difficulty), and not the ones you dream of for your creature. There is no functional difference by placing one or twenty mouths or weapons, and where you place them makes no difference either. If you try anything slightly out of the ordinary, the game just doesn't animate it at all. For example: my carnivore was armed with spikes along the back of it's arms, but when it attacks you just saw the hands do a swipe. I ended up removing all but 1 spike because the extra ones did not add any damage.
Creature stage:
Basic and limited interactions amount to just 'grinding' your way to the next stage. There is very little new to see once you have visited 2 or 3 nests. Always the same thing: a group of creatures hanging around an identical nest, laying eggs. The world is covered by these nests.
Tribal stage:
Again, very limited options result in this just being a grind. 3 weapons, 3 instruments. You can either sing to a tribe or kill them, either way it is very quick and very easy to do. Gathering food for the tribe is done by either hunting, fishing, gathering or farming and each of these work almost the same way.
Civilisation stage:
You have to design 3 buildings and 3 vehicles, then never look at them again as you are zoomed out most of the time. There is no 'city life' if you zoom in, just random creatures standing around, or running around if the city is being attacked. The anthem creator is a joke, even if you have musical ability it is very hard to make anything decent. The randomly generated anthems you get are extremely random- there is no musicality and they will drive you nuts.
Space stage:
My favourite stage, it has much more variety and plenty to keep you interested. I like the 'freeform' style of play, and the fact that there is more than two or three ways to play in this stage.
My complaint here is that once you get even a small number of colonies, there will be so many attacks/special events that you rarely have time to just relax and explore the galaxy. The planets you visit are all randomly generated in much the same way and there is no reason to truly 'explore' any of them. The creatures and plants are always present in the same ratio, according to the 4 possible 'levels' of the planet. So just like the creature stage, you end up seeing the same patterns of life over and over- despite the different looks. And if you want to expand your empire be warned: you will spend the whole time chasing after pirate attacks and ecological disasters on the colonies you own, both of whi
Which are pretty tiresome after the first couple of times.
I played the space stage for a solid 4 hours with plenty left to do, then the game crashed and there is no auto save (may exist in the options, but not by default). Of course I had not saved, lost all my progress and do not want to repeat all the tasks again.
Conclusion:
Spore comes across as a fun, light-hearted game. It makes you smile, but once you get into the mechanics it is repetitive and boring. A for effort, D for result.