Take the very successful Guitar Hero franchise and offer fans small versions which focus on only one band, and you got something which could either be very good, or very bad. Whit Guitar Hero Metallica, it was mostly good, but in the case of Guitar Hero: Van Halen, it’s very bad. Actually, it’s a total mess. Just like old bands that reunited one last time for the sake of money, this game should never have been made.

In Guitar Hero: Van Halen, you follow the group through their tour, playing at different venues, from small to big, and the game is packed with 25 Van Halen tracks, 3 signature Eddie Van Halen guitar solos, and 19 guest acts — which are nothing but crappy impressions done by other bands. And guess what? It caries a full price. $60 for something which should, at best, have been a DLC add-on to Guitar Hero 5.

The gameplay is the same, tried and tested Guitar Hero stuff we’ve see so many times, and it works great even in Van Halen. The songs — the ones made by Van Halen — are good and especially in the end, when the classics turn up, is great and challenging. The “career” mode is as you expected, you play your way up from small venues to large ones, and in the end, the biggest ones. However, that’s about it. There are no challenges and versus modes like in GH5, nor is there a multiplayer Party Mode.

Technically, the game looks every bit as decent as GH5, maybe a bit less, but that’s besides the point when there are so many features missing which should have been there. More modes, better mutliplayer, for instance. You can’t even export your tunes to GH5. In all, Guitar Hero: Van Halen seems exactly what most have feared, or rather, known about Activision and the GH series: they’re milking it for every penny worth. The Van Halen game is useless to any Guitar Gero fan unless you are A) the biggest Van Halen and GH fan in the world or B) … actually, there is no B. If you own Guitar Hero 5, there’s no need for you to get the Van Halen add-on. In fact, it’s quite an outrage that this is charged the full $60 for.

The Good:
Some Van Halen tracks are good

The Bad:
Very shallow
Not enough tracks
Missing features
Short single-player
Completely uninspired
A rip-off at $60

Overall score: 1/10