It certainly didnt live up to the hype, especially with the DRM that they used. My game still takes 5-15 minutes to get to load through many "end processes" as the game hangs at one exact position in its boot sequence... the loading of the Securom bits. Go figure. The recent RA3 release with the same DRM does the exact same thing.
Apart from that, the game is fantastic when it works, but no where near the hype. There is so much potential in procedural methods and Spore doesnt utilize much more then the basics of other games that are already out there. The editors are impressive and fun, but procedural gameplay should be so much more then it currently is in spore.