Overall, though, I admit I sunk a little too much time into it, so I’ll vouch for it.  It adds an objective-based game to Spore, filling the major complaint and satisfying fans.

That said…why this?  Why would Maxis choose this as a first expansion?  An action-RPG doesn’t fit in with the rest of Spore.  The game was advertised as a tool to create creatures and develop civilizations, and that’s why people bought it.  This is along the lines of an expansion to SimCity that adds a GTA-style game to it.  If you’re going to expand a game, expand it within the confines of what the original was trying to do.

And possibly more importantly, why would they expand the Space phase?  That was the only phase with any meat to it, with the others seeming to hurry you through to get you to the good stuff.  It’s essentially the Creature phase again anyway, why not just expand the Creature phase?  80% of the game serves essentially no purpose and doesn’t seem to care and they focus their first expansion pack on the 20% that stands on its own already.  I don’t get it.

A+E awards the game with the score of ‘B’.  Read their full report here