Not the magical world one would hope for. What looked good on paper was poorly executed.
Although the cut scenes in the game are clips from the film, seeing the movie, (or reading the book) appears to be a must if you want to understand what's going on, because nothing is really explained.
If you're unfamiliar with the story. then you probably shouldn't play the game. But just in case you're still interested, here's the basics: Four children, ranging from grade school to high school ages, are sent away during the war to an old house in which they find a wardrobe that is a doorway into the magical world of Narnia which has been in a perpetual ice age for a really long time, as brought upon by the White Witch.
You start the game off trying to escape your burning house, in the middle of an air raid. The next level finds you in another home playing hide and seek with the lady of the house, until you find the Wardrobe which will lead you into Narnia. These first 2 levels lack in excitement, as you're mostly just walking and running around.
Once you get in Narnia, the action picks up, although it doesn't take long for it to get repetitive. Much of the game consists of button mashing, and goals are tedious to achieve. You take on a wave of enemies, then have to break a gate, or knock some rocks over, or something like that so that you can progress. Then do that again, then again, and there's a good chance that something will be timed along the way. It's as though the developers said "Well, we know people aren't going to want to keep this up for too long, so we might as well only give them 3 minutes to do it. Maybe that will make it more exciting." This formula is reused for a number of levels in a row.
There's lots of promise in the combat, as you can purchase upgrades to acquire new skills and attacks. There's also a variety in the skills that each of the 4 characters you control can have. The boys are the close range fighters. The oldest sister is the bowman, and the little girl is the healer and can get into tight spaces. They can also team up with each other to perform new moves. Using them to this capacity is helpful, as your teams mates are only beneficial when you're controlling them. When the AI is involved they're terrible in a fight, and fail to defend you while you're trying to take care of other tasks.
There's no doubt that the game is much better if you have someone to play co-op with you. The action is more interesting, and the tasks to complete are more fun.
As for single player, none of what could make the experience fun comes together until the last quarter of the game. In the final levels however, the game takes a turn, and becomes more engaging. By this time you have enough upgrades to make all characters a little more useful to each other. There's also enough moves in your repertoire so that you feel like you have some style to your fighting, and not just pressing buttons hoping you hit something. The levels also start offering some new experiences that you haven't seen in previous areas of the game. For example, in the big battle on the plains, you're given the option to call in special re-enforcement attacks to help in the battle. Seeing the game come together like this helps it end on a positive note. It's just unfortunate that you had to drudge your way through the rest of the game to get to the good stuff. It still doesn't rank it as the best action title out there, but it keeps it from failing miserably.
Once you finish the game, you can go back to try complete the bonus objectives that you may have missed along the way. These objectives consist of 2 things: freeing residents of Narnia from the statue-like prisons they were incarcerated in, and finding shields. Doing these things will help unlock new game-play features. For myself, I felt no need to go back and and reach 100% completion. The pay-off just doesn't seem big enough.
If you're a fan of the film, you might find the motivation to plow through the game, which you should be able to do in about 5 or 6 hours. And if you start it, I do suggest you finish, as the best action is at the end, and it should help to dull the pain of some of the more poorly done levels.