Awesome game!
When the day came that the console version of USM came out, I was one of the first to pick it up. While still good, it was somewhat dissapointing compared to what I had seen in trailers (quite a bit of cut content, while mostly small things, they still could have helped make the game a tad better and a tad longer). The DS one, however, lives up to every standard and beyond(and it's a hell of a lot better then Spider-Man 2 was for the DS).
Graphics
The graphics retain the nice cel shaded comic book style look from the other versions, with character movements top notch and the backrounds look straight out of the console versions. The camera will also zoom in and out or pan up so you can get a better view of the action. The game also uses some great looking comic book style cinematics with panels popping in and out from all directions of the screens. Sometimes the frame rate drops a bit when the actions high, but it's not near bad enough to hinder the gameplay.
Sound
The audio is fantastic, featuring plenty of original of voiceovers and sound effects. The music is excellent, and the voiceovers are great. Spidey offers plenty of his witty remarks, villains act..uhh...villainy, and Venom is mostly quiet outside a few grunts and roars, with a couple lines near the end. For some wierd reason, in a couple levels there are civillians who talk with just plain text. Its not really anything to complain about, I just don't get it considering only about three or four civillians in the whole game use it. How hard would it have been to put three or four more lines in the game? But whatever. Some of the audio is also recycled from the previous Spider-Man movie games. I noticed a few lines from Spider-Man 2 and the end of level theme from the first movie-based game.
Gameplay
The gameplay is quite excellent with Spidey using a traditional button scheme and Venom making great use of the touch screen( though you can still use a traditional button scheme with him if you want). Heck, i'd even call Venoms gameplay revolutionary for 2D side scrolleres on the DS. Ironically, most of the games complaints comes from Venom though. Venoms tendril shot sometimes goes in the totally wrong direction and you may find yourself just using the buttons. Some of the boss fights are a bit hard, especially with Venom, and the gameplay gets a tad repetitive. Spidey also uses the touch screen to select special moves, open doors, use control panels, and disable/enable switches. The switches and control pannels touch screen mechanics feel a tad gimmicky however, since it uses a mini game that has absolutely nothing to do with flipping switches or activating control panels. There is also a two game card multiplayer vs mode, but I don't know anyone else with the game so I don't know how it is from firsthand experience. I hear it isnt that great though.
Replayability
This is the major complaint of the game. Its too short and theres nothing good to unlock for beating it. You unlock some stuff for multiplayer, but since multiplayer supposedly isn't very good it's nothing to get excited about. If you play through a second time, you can do a couple things differently and make some of the levels a tad different, but thats about it. However, if you like the game as much as me, you'll probably find yourself playing it again and again anyways because the games so fun.
Overall
Ultimate Spider-Man is a great game that lives up to it's namesake comic. This game is definitely worth checking out, especially for any Spider-Man fans. But it would have been nice to see a few more levels.