I had so many doubts about this product. I questioned how this game was going to know which tabs/chords I was playing. I didn't know if it would actually help me learn to play any better than the countless YouTube vidoes had before. But my questions were soon answered thanks to GameStop having a good sale on the "game" a couple of weeks ago.
I've had a guitar since 2001 and I've learned to do absolutely nothing on it. I'd practice for a couple of days, maybe even a week, and lose all interest in it until a couple of months later. I never wanted to get a teacher for help since I'm a full time employee, married, and a gamer (ie: no free time). I tried several methods online, even bought the beginner books at stores... nothing. So this game was my last hope. And so far, I've stuck with it longer than before. Am I learning anything? Maybe, maybe not, but I'm at least practicing.
The game works, which blew me away. I have a friend that's the exact same way with the guitar as me, and also a gamer. I loaded Skype up so he could watch me play and so we could judge the game based on what it was advertised as. He was blown away too, buying it the next day.
When you play, the game starts you out on very basic tabs. At first, I was thinking this method sucked (still blown by the fact that it recognized I was playing the right note). I soon realized that it would be pointless to throw all the notes at me since I'm still in learning mode. But basically, the game will start you off with a few notes here and there. If you're doing good, you will "level up" and be able to play more notes. Start sucking again, it will level you back down. I have found this method extremely helpful so far and something that really makes sense.
While you play through events and practice-practice-practice, you'll unlock some mini-games that help you progress further. These are just there to help you fine tune moving between strings and frets, chords, slides, bends, and more. I've played so much of the bends and frets that I actually do feel I've improved at the guitar a little bit.
Pretty much everything works well. There's a lot of tutorial videos and mini-games/training tools that makes the $50-$80 price really well worth it if you're seriously wanting to learn. The only thing I will say that kind of stinks is that when you turn the music/crowd off, you'll notice you still suck at the guitar because you're not strumming correctly or holding the string down incorrectly. I've been working on this and I think the best thing to do to sound better is crank the music/crowd down to about 60 and leave the guitar up so you can actually hear yourself suck.
One other thing I've noticed is that the game isn't perfect at picking up the notes you've played properly. For example, if you have to strum a lot, the vibrations is what it picks up (I assume) and if a string is still vibrating, sometimes it will pick it up like you played it. It's rare, but it happens.