A challenging game, but not for the right reasons.
The story is pretty good, but is not without its hitches. You star as Darth Vader's secret apprentice, Starkiller, who, after one too many betrayals from the sith lord, begins to struggle with his loyalty to the empire. I was shocked by how surprisingly human Starkiller was; instead of a confident, brutal and lethal sith warrior, you get a vulnerable and conflicted young man. The plot contains enough twists to keep you interested, but nothing really jumps out and surprises you. The main problem I have with the story is Starkiller's love interest, his new pilot. There romance is never really developed - somewhere along the lines of the game she goes from thinking you're a jerk to falling in love with you, but there are no pivotal moments where you see it happening.
Combat is usually fun, and unleashing the force on helpless stormtroopers is quite satisfying. Combos are easy to pull off but still rewarding to perform, as many cumulate with the opponent being blasted away or electrocuted. You can pick up enemies and drag them through the air in 3D, and throw them into one of their allies or off a cliff or even straight into the air. You can grab an enemy, charge him full of electricity, and then send him flying back towards his helpless companions as a human bomb. If you get overwhelmed, you can charge a ball of energy and unleash it, knocking back all enemies at the cost of depleting your force meter.
Battles with enemy jedi are pretty cool, but since the game feels more like it was designed for you to be taking on multiple opponents, you never really get that up close and personal experience when fighting a jedi master. Other (mini) bosses are less interesting to fight, since if you approach them from the ground to try and string some combos together they will just shockwave you away, which forces you to mash the same aerial combos with some force lightning interspersed to keep the boss stunned. Finishing moves are pretty cool, but start to lose their novelty once you perform the same one a few times in a row.
Targetting is pretty difficult once you start to face enemies in the air or on ledges. Several levels have snipers that are almost impossible to reach, and when you try to position a barrel in place to hit them you either get (a) sniped or (b) attacked by other units. You get hit by a lot of unavoidable damage throughout the game, usually because you get knocked down and the game doesnt give you a chance to get back up, so a lot of the time battles are more frustrating than they are difficult. The problems culminate in the worst boss battle in the game (and probably one of the worst fight sequences I've ever played) - a star destroyer. The game switches to a 2D-esque platform, but the star destroyer and the tie fighters it sends out all come at you from the 3rd dimension. That would be fine except for the fact that, as the tie fighters fly toward you to shoot you, it's almost impossible to target them. When you finally down them all, you only get a few seconds to reaquire the star destroyer and maneuver it back into position to be pulled down (apparantly the force doesnt work on star destroyers unless it's directly facing you in the center of the screen) before another wave of fighters stops you in your tracks.
And then there are the loading screens. Navigating the menus is a nightmare, because you hit a loading screen every time you go into a submenu. If you want to pause the game, upgrade your force powers, and then change your lightsaber crystal, you'll be out of the action for a solid few minutes. While it doesnt sound like much, the annoyance starts to pile up everytime you grow a level or find a new saber crystal.
Overall this game reeks of unfulfilled potential. If you have a high tolerance for frustration, or are a fan of the Star Wars series, you'll probably enjoy the fun and fluent combat and interesting plot. Otherwise, I'd caution against buying this game. Maybe rent it - the game is short enough to beat in a solid weekend's worth of play.