Even the genetic heroes, which you pilot through Darkspore’s plentiful but ultimately samey alien worlds, are a bit of a disappointment. Supposedly, these warrior-beasts are your own creations and the means by which you’ll reclaim the Crogenitor empire. As Darkspore’s title implies, an adapted version of Spore’s creature editor figures in prominently to the creation process.
Character creation is really more like character customisation, however. There are 100 genetic heroes for you to unlock, but each one comes with a base from which you’re only really able to build on by adding bits here and there, rather than build from scratch. You can add the bits on wherever you want, scaling their size and changing the skin tones of your entire creature, but it’s hard to feel any attachment or personality stem from this process. It’s like comparing an original watercolour to a painting-by-numbers.