Even though The Beatles: RB is fun and has a well-intentioned heart, the final product feels like a wasted opportunity.
To start, while the game will certainly appeal to people who recognize and love the brilliance of The Beatles, like me, it does a pretty poor job of explaining the history of the band to newcomers. Sure, this is a game and not a documentary, but it doesn't even point out the band member's names until the second venue, so expect loads of "Which one's Ringo?" while playing with ignorant family members. Even the unlockable photos with trivia explain very specific details, like the difference between the mono and stereo versions of "I'm Looking Through You," rather then help explain, for example, why The Beatles stopped touring in 1966. Some people will look towards this game for a comprehensive history of the band, and have every right to do so, and they'll be left with a scatter-shot account.
Then there's the tracklist. Sure, it get's points for not taking the direction band-specific Guitar Hero games do (half of the songs by the artist you payed money to play as, and half of the songs by a bunch of jackwagons), and for being The Beatles, but it's inexcusably short. Even if the 45 tracks do a good job of representing The Beatles' varied musical natures, the band wrote 306 songs. With most full-fledged music games featuring 80-90 songs these days, the paltry list of songs is a disservice to the band's history and simply makes no sense. They even had the nerve to omit some of The Beatles' biggest hits, like "She Loves You" and "Help," the latter of which was actually the title of The Beatles' second movie. The song that shares the same name as a movie they were the stars of didn't make the cut, over "If I Needed Someone" and "Getting Better." Why? WHY?!?
The final point of negativity is the visual presentation. Really, the only bright spot are the Dreamscapes, which were a stroke of brilliance and are really fun to watch. The rest of the game, though, suffers from one big problem: very rubbish animation. Hop on YouTube and watch a video of The Beatles performing live. They look around the stage, they smile when they look at each other, they look like they're having a fun time. Compare that to the in-game visuals, which consist of four robotic mannequins cycling through two facial emotions. I'm not expecting the best in the world, but remember that, due to the fact that the player, in no way, interacts with the background visuals, the quality of the graphics is solely in the hands of the developer. Well, Harmonix could have, and should have done better.
Still, after all this whining and complaining, this is still Rock Band, which is fun, with Beatles songs, which are the absolute best. The combination is still a winner, very fun to play, and a worthwhile purchase, but it's very easy to picture a bigger, bolder game, something truly deserving of The Beatles' legacy.