Spore is an infinitely more unique and nuanced experience than Darkspore, but in the end, Darkspore is much more likely to stick around in the gamer psyche. It may not do anything particularly new, but the way it polishes and riffs on known gaming conventions should leave you happily clicking on bad guys and collecting new body parts late into the night.

Waiting for the return of Diablo, this new Hack'n'Slash pleases the gamer, thanks to the great variety of situations and characters.

Darkspore takes some parts of the evolution simulator Spore, but not enough to create a title able to beat its alternatives. If we forget that there once was a game called Spore, Maxis's new job is a fluid, agile and fun ARPG, perhaps too simple and repetitive but with enough hours of fun. A good way to spend time, but if you want greater depth you will find better it in other alternatives.

Darkspore is long and solid but its lack of substantial innovation and repetitive missions makes this game too derivative to achieve a truly fun experience as expected.

Even with all its collection of flaws, Darkspore is not a bad game. The only real mistake that EA made was releasing it on PC with a $50 price tag. This game belongs on XBLA or PSN. But if you're into some mindless time-killing before going to bed, by all means, pick it up.

Darkspore doesn't exactly redefine RPGs as we know it, but there's no other action RPG around that allows this much control over the look of your characters. There's a lot of room for improvement, but the living loot system and Hero Editor help Darkspore stand out among other hack-and-slash games.

Darkspore remains a humdrum deep-space Diablo, but one doomed to be defined more by what it's missing than what it offers. [June 2011, p.98]