Gamespot's 360 review is terrible...
First of i'll make it known that I am an expert+ drummer. I simply love the fun that these songs are to play. It is quite a bit more than in many of the songs in GHWT where I feel like the way they make the songs hard is simply by making you have to do something at a quick pace. While yes, that is hard to do, there is much more to it than speed. The actual "feel" of playing the drums in this game is about as good as you can get shy of the real thing.
The set list is amazing. Once again, as gamespot drove down your throat, it is a little short. I would love double the amount of songs without a doubt. I just cant seem to see something like that happening though. How much time did they really want to put into developing a game that they can very easily add songs to. Plus, I can understand that they don't want to completley kill the Metallica market for GHWT either.
Some very good imporvements are as follows...
*The charting system for drums is head and shoulders better than the one in GHWT. Its much easier to understand and doesn't seem like such a mess. Its not quite as good as Rockband's, but it is coming close.
* The star power interface separation when playing with more than one member is also much improved over GHWT for the simple fact its more clear and easier to understand.
* One huge difference between GHWT and this is the vocals. Now, I don't know what the deal was with the vocals in GHWT but they seemed way too hard. It seemed like you had to hit the perfect pitch, instead of using RBs method of being able to sing an octave higher or lower. Well, thats fixed in GH:M and they use a method similar to RB it seems. My girlfriend who is a singer and loves to play these games with me can fly through expert on RB with no problem, but the weirdness of the GHWT interface would get her hung up on at most hard. Its good that they fixed it because its easier to get her to play GH now.
I could go into all of the fan stuff in this game, but theres really no need. There is a ton of it and if you are a fan of the band you will like it.
I am a musician. I grew up around the time of Metallica so I was playing a lot of these songs on my own and covering them in bands. This game really helped me to remember the fun that these songs were for me. I don't play guitar because I am a professional guitar player in every day life so its not much of an interest to play it in a game, but the drums which I can play "ok" in real life are amazingly fun for me. This game is everything you would want it to be as a fan of the band.
The last part is, what if you aren't a fan of Metallica? To put it simply, my girlfriend isn't, well... Wasn't. After several hours playing this game she turns to me and says "you know what? I think I like Metallica..." It really is a fun all around game, and I think anyone who is a fan of this genre in any way should not pass up the game, period.