The Absence of Context in Spore
It is difficult to be critical when talking about a game as earnest as Spore. I expect this is why most discussions, particularly reviews, of the game have been mostly positive. Of course, no one pretends its constituent gameplay modes are any good. After all, we cannot fault it for failing to do something it is clearly not attempting. Yet it is a mistake to ignore the gameplay in Spore. Two reasons are given for excusing its shoddiness: first, the game is intended for a casual audience, and its simplistic gameplay is meant to induct non-gamers into genre conventions, not impress ‘hardcore’ gamers with its depth. Second, the focus is not the game modes anyway but the creation tools. Yet both excuses are problematic. In the former case, I fail to see how buggy, confusing, and sluggishly-controlled genre prototypes will draw anyone into gaming. The latter case is even more problematic, because, as it turns out, the real problem with Spore is not the overly simplistic gameplay modes. The real issue is that the game fails to provide a context for what are otherwise ingenius creature/technology creation tools.
Two Bits 
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