Basically there were two "teams" working on Spore. Scientific and "Cute". The Scientific side was the one that was more prominent in the early stages, it made the game look cool. Revolutionary. Non-repetitive. Then the cute team came along, and wanted to market the game towards younger kids and non-intelligent people. They compromised and we got the Spore we got today.
I personally would have loved it if it stayed as it was in the 2005 demo, with the underwater stage, and more monotones. I got it, payed for it the day it came out, and played it for a good portion of time. But still, it was well-hyped in the beginning, then it got a little over-hyped.
