I just found some mini reviews I used to write for a friend regarding games, so I will use the same format for any game I review.

So here's Heavenly Sword
The Goods:
Graphics are amazing.  I'm really impressed with how detailed the faces are, and are pretty expressive.  They did a good job with the eyes, which tend to look "dead" in most CG people, but every character in this game seems to "live".  Hard to explain, but watch Polar Express and you'll understand the concept of dead eyes.
The animations are very smooth, and gameplay feels pretty natural once you get the rhythm of combat.  A little trick that I especially like is when you get knocked into the air, shake the controller to recover.  No button press.  just shake, and Nariko will launch her blades into the attacker to pull herself back down.
The acting is really good.  I watch the cutscenes and think "I'd like to watch this as a movie. CG and all."
The Bads:
I'm not a fan of "aftertouch" controls.  In this game, some of the puzzles depend on controlling the thing your throwing/shooting in flight.  This has never seemed realistic to me (however, killing thousands of soldiers single-handedly somehow doesn't phase me).  But at least aftertouch works better here than I've seen it anywhere else.
The Uglies:
Boss battles are like God of War, where you have to hit the correct sequence of buttons at the right time to effect the proper moves.  That's fine.  But don't HEAL the damn boss if I fail to complete the special sequence of moves.  Either make it a fatal mistake so I have to start over killing the boss again (both of us fully healed) or let the boss's health continue to fall.

Overall:
Great game.  If you liked God of War, you'll probably like Heavenly Sword about the same.

Generally, I agree with Diddly's review of Heavenly Sword. I found the lag time between gaming and CG sequence a little annoying...I would not recommend this game to a novice gamer (like myself) as I discovered it will be impossible to complete the game on my own...and after waiting so l-o-n-g for HS, I'm disappointed that it did not have several levels of play like God of War. Not all of us got the reflexes and speed of a 10 year old boy or Hawkeye.

Having played it some more, I don't mind the aftertouch controls now.  When you play as Kai and have to shoot arrows into far off people, I kind of like the ability to guide the arrow along its path.

I hate this game... and by hate I mean HATE...  I hate that I have to go over to Diddly's to play it... I hate that I didn't want to leave.  I hate that when I played it I dreamt about it that night.  I hate that I don't have a playstation 3... I hate that I can't play this game more.... I love this game.