DJ Hero is a nice, fresh take that the music game genre sorely needed.
With the regular edition selling at around $120, and the Renegade Edition selling at around $200, you'd be surprised to find that if you enjoy any of the music inside (anything from the Jackson 5, to the Killers, to Queen, to MC Hammer and Daft Punk) chances are you'll get a kick out of DJ Hero.
In gameplay your basics are to hit the notes as they come down on the three buttons, press and hold a button and move the "record" back and forth to scratch, use the Crossfade switch when designated (in gameplay vids, this is when you see the green or blue track dart to the left or right), utilize euphoria (for Guitar Hero vets, this is the equivalent of Star Power), use an effects knob (similar to the function of the whammy bar), and if you are good, rewind.
Seem like a lot? Good, because it is, but DJ Hero takes you through with a well-constructed tutorial, and a slight difficulty curve that grows as you unlock more tracks. You unlock tracks, costumes, arenas and such by your ratings on songs. Get a 5 star rating on this entire setlist? That's 15-25 stars right there!
What I haven't looked at is multiplayer however. There's three forms of multiplayer: local table & table, local table & guitar, and online table & table. You may notice the lack of a few things, mainly a "vs.". The modes only allow you to play cooperatively.
Graphically speaking, the game (mostly) looks fantastic, but I did notice in some shots, the crowd would get in the way of the primary focus of the camera and appear very jagged.
I imagine most are wondering what the big differences are between the two retail versions, so here goes. In the normal version, you get the game, and a simple black matte finished table with... I'll call it "silver" accents. Sorry, it's not the one I've seen in person. The renegade version comes with the game, a black glossy table with gold accents, a suitcase/stand for your table and game, plus a 2-cd set of music by Eminem and Jay-Z.
No matter which version you get, the music and gameplay in DJ Hero is a breath of fresh air that the music game genre really needed, and for better or worse, maybe we'll see more new ideas come from this.