From the very beginning Guitar Hero: Aerosmith sounds like a pretty bad idea. Hearing that the Guitar Hero makers were going to make a game using just a single band might cause you to think that they were missing the point entirely. However that is a knee-jerk reaction, looking more closely at it reveals that this is a rather good idea. Rather than hoping that you get one song from a band that you like in your Guitar Hero or Rock Band game you stand a pretty good chance of getting a number of songs you like to play.

This generates more interest in the game and means that it has a much better appeal. However this hinges upon you actually being interested in the band in question. But considering who they chose for their first game it's rather clear that Neversoft is aware of this potential liability and are choosing bands with a large fan base to begin with. It's a great idea and one that can potentially be just as rewarding to the fans as it is to the game developers.

As a matter of course, personal taste is going to make the song list is a divisive point. Some will love the song selection which consists of twenty five songs from Aerosmith themselves and a number of songs from bands that were inspired by Aerosmith or the other way around. It gives you a chance to play more than just the music from the band but what purpose is there to an Aerosmith game where you play non-Aerosmith music?

This is especially egregious seeing as how a number of popular Aerosmith songs were left out of it for some reason. The more pop-type music from the "Crazy" and "I don't wanna miss a thing" are left out but then they brought in "Pink"? It's uneven and a bit frustrating especially since the capstone of the game is "Train Kept A Rollin" which is not only a mediocre song but also appeared in Rock Band. So instead of having some grand finale, like possibly saving "Walk This Way" for a finale you get a rehash of a song that appeared in another game already.

On the bright side you are listening to what are almost entirely master tracks or remastered tracks. This means that older songs like "Dream On" won't sound tinny or have generally poor quality and were instead rerecorded by the band to update them to the quality of modern music. Even some of the older songs that weren't fully redone had some updated singing or guitar playing put into the game. You honestly couldn't find higher quality music in a video game.

One of the biggest issues with this game is one that plagued Guitar Hero: Rock the 80's. You are paying for a full priced game here but you aren't getting nearly as many songs as you might get from other music games. Rock Band has 58 songs on disk, Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock gave you 73 songs on disk and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith gives you a little over forty. There's a serious drop here especially since it's pretty much a guarantee you won't see much downloadable content with Activision focusing on Guitar Hero World Tour. This means that there's very little music in the game, not much to be added later and the game really isn't worth the full price tag as a result.

A secondary result of the dearth of songs in the game is that this is lacking in some replay value. Normally a Guitar Hero game relies on multiple playthroughs on various difficulties, co-op playthroughs and bonus tracks to add replay. Lacking a co-op career mode and with so few bonus tracks it's easy to see just how much this game is a one-time, one-trick pony. Playing through this game you will very likely find yourself unable to shake the fact that it really just feels like a full price expansion pack that could very likely have been released as a DLC add-on to Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock.

Another problem with this game is one that seriously plagued Guitar Hero 3, a lack of animation. While the graphics are rather good and all of the singing and guitar playing looks incredibly good nobody moves around the stage. You would swear that all of these people have broken legs and can do little more than shuffle around. This is bizarre seeing as how the guitarists moved around quite a bit in Guitar Hero 2 and is something of a regression that one might think would be fixed by the second game from Neversoft. It's a shame to see Steven Tyler reduced to just wiggling in place instead of dancing all of stage like he normally does. It makes one wonder where all that motion capture went with him if he wasn't motion capturing his normal dancing around the stage.

It's hard to say that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is a bad game, it really isn't. However it is most definitely not worth the full price that is being charged for it when it could be played to satisfaction as a weekend rental for all but the biggest completionists. Buying it at a reduced price closer to its actual value definitely makes for a more satisfying purchase and you will be able to enjoy rocking out with one of the best bands to ever grace the music industry.