Awesome beginning, great end, but I'll be damned if the middle of the game wasn't mind-numbingly frustrating.
The characters were built well, although a bit too quickly (but that's because of the short game). The voice acting was quite good and sold the story very well. The only problem I have is that the guy playing the Emperor tried too hard to get his weird accent. But over-all, one of the, if not the best Star Wars stories to come along in a long time (and this is from a guy who doesn't loathe the prequels like many Star Wars fans).
The gameplay? Awesome. The grip might get difficult for many to get used to. It's not hard to grasp and get basic concepts down, but it's nearly impossible to be perfectly accurate to grip what it is you want and then throw it at what it is you want. You'd be amazed how many times I had a giant boulder directly in front of an AT-ST, tried to throw it forward, and *gasp* it flew off to the side into a wall. But for the most part, the system works fairly well.
The intro level (where you play as Darth Vader crushing Kashyyyk) is awesome. Like, amazingly so. I replayed it about 3 times to show friend blasting through walls with Vader.
And the first couple missions with Starkiller were a blast with great boss fights that always ended in a brutal rampaging for the fallen foe that was pretty damn well put together, even if the button pushing system was taken straight from the God of War book. The only discredit I'd give the boss fights is that some of them require a very specific move, and the game gives you NO idea on what it would be. Think like a Zelda game but there was no reason to use your specific tool.
Fighting Shaak Ti, I was getting molested by her, the stupid exploding bubbles, and those damn tentacles. After about my fifth try, I said "To hell with it." and tried using Force Repulse (a move I don't like because of how much Force power requires) and HOLY MACKEREL! She was catapulted into of those obnoxious exploding bubbles. About 2 minutes of repulse spamming, and I was declared victor. That sort of trial and error happened a couple times.
The next couple levels were an exercise in frustration. Fighting four rancors at the same time with a bunch of invulnerable Felucian warriors and like, 3 chieftains you have to kill so you can kill the other warriors so you can kill the rancors without being interrupted by everything? Let me tell you, fun.
By about mission 6 or so though, the game came back on track. Everyone seems to think pulling a Star Destroyer out of the sky was the most obnoxious thing of all time because of all the TIE fighters. Did they not notice that pillar in the middle that you can, oh I don't know, HIDE BEHIND? Jesus, rubble conveniently flies out for you to take out the TIE fighters. My only problem with it is that for how repetitive it was, it was a little drawn out, I just did the same thing four times and was done with it.
But I still felt like an epic bad-ass for crushing a Capital class starship.
The lost boss fights were tremendously fun and the ending (I accidentally spoiled it for myself because I'm a dumbass) still managed to surprise me with its sincerity.
In summary: The gameplay, while it has some flaws, is still very fun overall. And despite a couple obnoxious missions (I think there were like, 2 or 3 that pissed me off), the game is overall pretty fun. It would have been absolutely epic if I didn't have to hide behind a wall to peek out and blast everything with Force lightning, but alas.
An absolutely must pick-up if you're a fan of Star Wars. And if you're a fan of action games in general, I'd suggest it. It does have its annoying moments and it won't be the best game you've ever played, but its an interesting rent for non-Star Wars fans, to say the least.
Also, I have since replayed it to get the alternate ending, and the second playthrough, while much shorter, feels much more balanced. Mostly because the first levels are easy enough to get through, but the difficult ones are great when you have level 3 lightning and repulse. Also, both endings are awesome. So the game also has quite a bit of replay value.
Final verdict: 8.2. Gamespot REALLY needs to bring back .1 increments.