Few bands are as polarizing as Metallica. Some fans think they're sell-outs, that they've gone soft. Others still love them. And of course there are those who never cared for them (and if you're one of those, you don't need to read this).

Regardless which category you fall into, "Guitar Hero Metallica" is a fantastic showcase of the band.

"Guitar Hero Metallica" takes more than 25 songs from the band's head-banging history and wraps it in with other songs from groups picked by Metallica, including Queen, Slayer and Alice In Chains.

I wasn't too thrilled with the previous band-specific game in the "Guitar Hero" series, "Guitar Hero Aerosmith," but I thoroughly enjoyed "Metallica."

It helps, of course, that I'm more of a Metallica fan than an Aerosmith fan. But the game itself has more meat to it - a ton of the band's most popular (and finger-mangling) songs and lots of facts, videos, photos and song lyrics.

And, following on "Guitar Hero World Tour's" heels, "Metallica" allows for a full band. If you're up for some extra challenge, you can even access an Expert+ difficulty level on many songs, in which you need two bass pedals to keep up with the drum track.

"Metallica" strays a bit from "World Tour's" path by using a song progression similar to earlier "Guitar Hero" games: song sets unlocked by playing through previous sets. This time, though, sets are unlocked by earning a set number of stars, rather than playing through all the previous songs. In the end, this means you play fewer songs to unlock the entire song list.

I was wary about how I would fare with Metallica's songs. Frankly, some of them are rough. Luckily, if you overestimate your talent, you can back out and change the difficulty without losing your progress.

In the end, this is a game for fans. You're not going to want to play it if you don't like Metallica. But if you do, it's incredibly well done and a blast to play.

Welcome change: "Guitar Hero Metallica" adds a much-needed meter that shows how close you are to reaching the next star rating on your current song. So you can cry about how close you were to five-starring it.

All about consolidation: I wish the songs from "Guitar Hero Metallica" could be exported into "Guitar Hero World Tour's" playlist. After all, I was able to pull "AC/DC Live: Rock Band" into "Rock Band 2."

Guitar Hero Metallica

By: RedOctane, for Xbox 360 (also for PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2)

Rated: Teen

Cost: $59.99

Score: 8.5/10