While it's certainly not a traditional Sonic game, it's not as bad as everybody might tell you it is.
Gameplay, 7. The game plays about like what other 3D Sonic games in the past have played like. You get to the Goal Ring to beat the level. There is one new thing in the gameplay; the guns. The guns are one of the reasons this game got so much heat. They have an autoaim function but unfortunatley it is hard to control which enemy you shoot and the autoaim doesn't differentiate between good guys or bad guys so if you're trying to do the good or bad mission you may shoot your allies sometimes. In Shadow the Hedgehog there is a different way of beating the stages here. In most levels there are three ways to beat the level: There is the good mission, the bad mission, and the neutral mission which involves just getting to the Goal Ring. Unlike his rival, Sonic, Shadow feels no obligation to help the good guys so you can do whatever you want. The way the story goes depends on what mission you do in each stage. There are a total of 11 endings and 23 levels.
The gameplay isn't perfect, but it sure as hell plays better than Sonic Heroes. People believe the game is cheap like Sonic Heroes but I honestly just about never have that kind of problem with the game. I actually kinda like the guns and I think that it's nice to have something new to the Sonic series.
Graphics, 7. The graphics aren';t the best in the world, but they're certainly passable. The detail to the characters is all right. The stages are hit-and-miss however. Some stages look just great while others leave a lot to be desired to their design and details.
Sound, 8. I thought the music was pretty good. The voice acting wasn't that good, especially since I think these voice actors are the same ones from some Sonic cartoon. The sound effects are good.
Value, 7. Even though there are 23 stages you will only play 6 of them in a sitting on this game. Fortunatley unlocking all 10 endings, beating all the stage's missions, and unlocking all 23 stages should take you a little while to do.
Difficulty, Easy. This game was actually pretty easy. Expect for the king of the game most of the bosses were fairly easy. There are some pretty easy stages on this, but then again there are some really hard ones too, which helps balance things out a little I guess.
Tilt, 7. I honestly don't get why people hated this game so much. I'm not saying it was awesome or anything like that but it certainly didn't deserve a 4.8 from Gamespot, an average of 5.4, and a lot of users who despised this game (mostly for the guns). I'm not sure who I could recommend this game to since it's not the best 3D Platformer on the Gamcube or Wii out there and even a lot of hardcore Sonic fans might get turned off on this game due to its untraditional style of gameplay as compared to Sonic games of the past.