Magic: Battlegrounds appears to be an attempt to translate the paper game Magic into a reasonably fast paced computer game. It succeeds at the translation, and will be entertaining enough to fans of the series that it makes a fine gift. Without the background and nostalgia of already being a fan, it seems unlikely to me that the game holds much promise.
The game follows the player, first through the exploration of each of the individual colors, and then into pairing them up. The game features a number of major figures from Magic, and a healthy number of cards as well.
The problem is that the gameplay feels thoroughly contrived, like the game was built as a direct translation of Magic: The Gathering onto a console. A personal qualm of mine was that the graphics, while looking pretty good, were very demanding on my hardware for such simple gameplay. "Enchantments" go in the background, and affect the whole map. In this game, you and another planeswalker are on either side of a magical dueling field, where you summon monsters to attack your enemies and defend yourself. Creatures have one of three behaviors: charge forward, stay put, and hide behind you. Most creatures attack, and a few defend, but some creatures exist for support (Llanowar Elves gives you more mana for casting spells).
There were two major points that I was annoyed at. First, your planeswalker can make a basic counterattack using your staff. While this sounds small, with good timing it can render all one toughness creatures useless for attacking, since you can just knock them off before they hit you. The other major deviation was the ability to push the "\" key for a tiny bit of mana to help your regeneration. As things go in strategy games, if you can do something you must, but maniacally jamming a button doesn't make for especially exciting gameplay, especially coming from a series that normally claims to be a strategy title. It does help overcome the painfully slow regeneration you have when you are low on mana (you regenerate faster when more full), but it seems like a terrible bandage for that to me.
Overall, I did enjoy the game, and it does provide the mix-and-match kind of opportunities Magic players enjoy. A fine gift for a fan of the game, but I think it would be lacking. The gameplay is at least unique, such that someone looking for "something a little different" might pick it up just to see it.