Creation = Good Game play = Average
The creation tools are by far the best tools that have ever been implemented within a game, for creation of not just creatures, but buildings and vehicles.
Sharing of user content is really very cool and well implemented and the sporepedia is awesome to the max.
This is where the revolution ends. The game play is overly simplistic, from the organism phase which does play out like Flow, it is far too easy to impress or eat your rivals. Like wise in destroying other civilizations and tribes. These all play out like 'lite' versions of more established games.
In the space phase the game comes into it's own with many opportunities to explore, conquer and 'quest' but this never feels like you are working towards much at all...
The penalties for death in Spore are non-existent, which is disappointing, there seems to be no incentive to preserve your creature or race. A 30 minute non-evolve period might have been sufficient to make this a bit more challenging.
If the Sims 3 could build on some of those creation tools we just might have a great game, as it is spore is good but leaves a lot to be desired.