I don't know what all the hype or great reviews are about, I've had this game for about a week and am getting pretty bored of it already. The constant changing between characters and pixies makes the game play slow then the usual rapid fun and free mario pace of earlier time.
I guess the general consensus like my girlfriend keeps insisting is that the ability of being paper thin in 3d but I find that's a minor feature whose novelty wears off pretty fast. To me, spending most of the time playing in 2d it seems like a waste of wii capabitlities, so even mario64 seems more ambitious in that regard.
The basic storyline is unoriginal, cloning the same generic structure as Sonic and the Secret Rings and many other older games. This reallywouldn't bother me that much but way too much time is spent on elaborating the storyline and wading through hours and hours of lame dialogue.
Either way, after about a week we're both pretty bored with what the game has to offer. So far, we've got 2 games and both have been disappointing, shame.