Don't get me wrong, God of war is a great game. Just overrated. Short: set high difficulty. Bad platform.
The combat is to easy and means to little in the game if you don't set the difficult high enough, my advice is to start at the highest level difficulty at your disposal. If you do that however it's really fun and challenging! You can upgrade your different "spells" and attacks + get new abilities, by collecting orbs (go for more attacks, this will enhance the combat). This work fine.
Graphics is just not as great as everyone says, I can name other games which has better! I guess sound is alright, haven't really noticed... fairly good music trough...
God of War is worth a try...