One of my sons has enjoyed this game at his friend's house, and I am sure that most of the rest of the family would like it, too. I was given specific instructions, not to purchase any more Christmas presents, so I fear that I may get into trouble...heh.

No idea if it was fixed later or something, but didn't this game have incredibly restrictive DRM initially?

DRM or not everyone says this game is an increadible dissipointment.

Is it really that bad?

In my opinion, spore is a crap game - but designing your own creatures is so fun that it kinda make up for it. Since creature design is the actual content of this game, "Creepy & Cute Parts Pack" are well worth the investment.

EDIT: I want to admit that I never reached beyound tribal stages, so I'm not entirely qualified to judge the game. Then again, the reason I dropped out of the game so early was that it failed to entertain, so ...

On Steam, it says you have to agree to a 3rd party EULA.
I've also been eying this - does anyone else have an opinion on the game and/or the DRM attached?

Just had a look at the EULA - i think it's a standard EA one?

I just looked it up, turns out it used to have SecuROM, but that was removed for Steam. It does still seem that it only allows for up to 5 installs, though (with more on a case-by-case basis).
Was the most pirated game of 2008 :D.

Have never played it because of the DRM issue. SR7 made me so anti DRM it could almost be considered ridiculous, other than simple key code stuff. SR7 cost me about 500 or more in equipment and about 40 hours of my time to fix what it broke. There was a very high percentage of people that had this problem for it not to just be a coincidence. That is also ONE of the reasons EA was sued over SR7

Some Steam reviews says that the games servers are down, so you no longer is able to share creatures with other players. If this is true, the game is practically broken.

On the other hand - Steams official description claims that sharing of creatures is still possible. Who to trust?

The game is not bad at all, the problem is that it was over-hyped.
Maxis promised a miracle but delivered just a nice trick.

A friend of mine played Spore for a couple of years with his pre-teen daughters, and it became a family activity that they carried on, here and there, for a few years down the line too. They had a blast playing it.

Spore is a fun wee game but the online servers are down. Though for a child, they shouldn't care about that. My son loves it.

Sorry, but I don't agree - discovering other peoples wierd creations was one of the main attractions of the game. This is why Steam highlights that feature in their description of the game - despite that it no longer have them:

EXPLORE Other Players' Galaxies Will your creature rule the universe, or will your beloved planet be blasted to smithereens by a superior alien race?
SHARE with the World Everything you make is shared with other players and vice versa, providing tons of cool creatures to meet and cool places to visit.

and from a childs point of view? My two don't even realise that feature even existed, they do not care and why should they! The base game is still there for them to have fun with.

I am pretty sure my 6 yr old hasn't been on to the steam page to make sure he's getting everything they advertised.