Great idea, failed execution.
I think the game was trying way too hard to be "all things for all people" and therefore appealed to none. Spore is basically as series of mini-games set up on the premise of evolutionary stages. Each stage will likely remind players of other games. Problem is, those other games are much better than the stages set up in this version. Spore has some Sims (its closest kin), Feeding Frenzy (or similar), and Age of Empires (though done exceedingly poorly here) within the tangled mess. Not much is intuitive, instruction is frustratingly bare whereas you have to spend most of your time online reading, and the functionality reminds me of early PlayStation 1 strategy games spending much of the time sliding the camera around or using more time fighting the controls rather than actually playing the game.
Creating the creatures is somewhat fun, the highlight of Spore, though the game funnels you into what features you should be giving your creatures according to the goals of the game and cost, so there isn't pure creative freedom if you're looking to advance. There's no reason to re-play this game and barely incentive to complete it once.
