SPORE oh my GOD

It actually was supposed to be good. They nuked it. The alpha version was probably better than release. You were tricked by the marketing because it straight up lied and they dumbed the game down intentionally despite internal controversy.

• Animal abilities are based on attached feet, eyes, and beaks etc. of varying points. Legs arms necks and tails literally do not matter. They were actually going to matter. The body design would have actually mattered.
• Once you hit the space stage, planets are colonized by shooting fucking nukes and terraforming missiles. That's fucking it.
• You don't go back and play the cellular stage to evolve the right kind of animal to terraform a planet
• You don't go back and play the animal or tribal stages to help create specific types of alien allies
• You don't go back and play the city stage to consolidate power and allow your allies to become spacefaring

You just play a 4 hour long fucking minigame and then run around for 100 hours shooting missiles and upgrading a ship. The entire game is fucking pointless.

I played Spore as a kid and never knew about how if was hyped up so I've got fond memories of it

Yup. No preorders, ever. Sometime's I'll throw money at an early access if I like the concept but I do so with no expectation that the game will ever be released as a finished product.