Part of the "fun" is the constant crashing.
The gameplay is so-so but fun to play just to see the creations.
The game is buggy but playable but what really sinks Spore is the crashing. For along time I could play from Cell to Space with little real trouble. Then, all the sudden, the game crashes in Tribal. For some reason if you delete a game and start a new game in its place, you'll get this game ending bug. It's a problem EA refuses to address.
Sure you can skip all the way to Space but you'll lose a lot of traits you can earn in the earlier stages.
It's a mess and EA Support is no help at all.
The sad truth is first Spore was dumbed down. Blood was taken out and it became very cartoony. Then it was was released without a planet or plant editor. They promised to release them later but never did.
Spore could of been truly revolutionary but evolved into nothing but a buggy money-grab.