The game can be bad at times, but it has it's moments.
Now, before I start ranting on all the negative things about the game, let's run through the positives. For one, the game has some nice graphics, and the entrances are really well done (I believe they were mo-capped). I'd say the entrances in this game are the best in the series. The pyro is timed correctly, and the wrestler animation's are crisp and fluid.
Gameplay has been revamped a fair bit from last year. For one, you now use the right-analog stick to grapple your opponent. There are two types of grapples you can do. You can do a quick grapple which is done by just flicking the right-analog which gets your opponent down on the mat for a quick beatdown. However, should you hold L1 as you proceed to grapple your opponent, you will place them in a hard grapple, which is pretty much what you do before you actually decide which grapple you perform on your opponent. From here, you can either flick the analog stick in either direction to perform the grapple, or you can either drag them to a hot-spot or perform an all-new Ultimate Control Move on them.
Now hotspots are areas around the ring which you can use to clobber your opponent. One example would be the ring post. If you bring your opponent over to a ring post, you can proceed to start bashing their head over the ring post. This however, drains your stamina so you can't do it forever. The one biggest flaw with this system, is that there are certain hotspots that you can't counter, and some do more damage than others, but don't take as much stamina, therefore, they are highly abused online.
Then you have your Ultimate Control Moves. Once you have your opponent in that hard grapple, you click R3 to activate it. This will set your opponent up in a devastating position, and they are at your mercy. Take for example, a powerbomb. You would carry the opponent in a crucifix position, and you can release-powerbomb them. This is a nice addition because it gives you more flexibility and it's always neat to powerbomb your opponents off the top of the cell.
Then you have minor things in the game that are nice little details. The roster is fairly up-to-date although they are missing the WWE Tag Team Champions at the time and while some people complain that ECW didn't make it, it's nothing big.
Now that the good's aside, it's time to run down the many negatives. First off, let's start with the sound in the game. For the most part it's pretty good. You have up-to-date wrestler entrances, the pyro sounds nice, and the voiceovers in Season Mode are vastly improved. Sounds good so far doesn't it? Then you have...the commentary. The commentary in this game takes away from the game. It ruins the moment of the game when moves are mis-called, improperly called, or when the commentators start chatting about superstars not in the match. I'll give you an example. I was playing a one-on-one match as Batista against Kurt Angle. I had Kurt set up in the Batista Bomb, for the guranteed win, when J.R shouts out, "OH MAW GAWD KING. THE STONE COLD STUNNER!". The ref then proceeded to count the pin. 1...2...but no 3, I turned off the system.
The Season Mode isn't too bad but it can get repetitive and fairly linear. However, they did manage to revamp the locker room so that it looks sort of like your pad in Def Jam where you can listen to messages and read news about yourself.
All and all, it's a fairly good game. I'd recommend it for any fan of the series, but warn them that they'd be disappointed. For everyone else, they shouldn't have a hard time just picking up the game and getting into it. However, should this not be the game for you, there's always SmackDown! VS RAW 2006 or SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain.