It may not live up to all the hype but...
The first thing that struck me like the smell of a dog turd were the graphics. They are definitely last gen, what a bummer! I guess they wanted to keep it accessible for people with lower spec pc's but I was expecting more. The things you create look great in the editors but in the actual game world(s) a lot of details are lost. Luckily the actual graphical design is so good I kinda got over that initial shock. And I must say that on my average pc (3ghz dual, 2gb ram, 8800gts 512) it runs without hiccups on maximum settings in 1680*1050. So that's a relief as well.
The second thing that struck me, but in a much more positive way was the soundtrack. It's incredibly, amazingly good. The music never gets intrusive or annoying and it reacts to what you do in the game. It even fades out when you alt-tab out of the game. The sound effects are also spot on. Only minor complaint is that the alien jibberish gets a bit repetitive here and there.
But enough about the audio-visual stuff. Non of that matters if the actual game is crap. But luckily it isn't. It isn't the ultimate god game though. In some ways it's actually more a toy then a game. Chances are that you'll end up spending more time in the various editors then playing the actual game. There are two reasons for this. The editors are just good fun in the first place. The other reason is that the game itself is too shallow sadly. It trows together a couple of genres but everything is stripped down, especially the first stages. Again very accessible, but a bit disappointing for veteran gamers.
So don't expect too much from this game if you are going to get it. But if you want something different, creative and not too difficult then Spore might be just the thing for you.