Yeah I felt pretty underwhelmed by Spore, but I was expecting so much more. The Space stage came the closest, but once you play it for a few hours it's just the same old 10 things to do over and fuckin' over again.
I'm playing through Dragon Age and I'm almost overwhelmed at the amount of areas I can visit, but it's pretty linear in terms of what you do when you actually get into an area. So far, at least, I'm only like 10% through.
Good game, tho.