The brand confusion over Guitar Hero and Band Hero was thoughtfully solved via Activision simply placing the Guitar Hero logo on the bottom of the cover for Band Hero, as if "Guitar Hero" is a publishing house or studio live Activision.  Also, to get something straight, this game is NOT created by the Guitar Hero team known as Red Octane, but rather Havok and Neversoft and the differences in quality show.

To start off, I will run down the numerous issues that this game has. 

THE MENUS
First, the menus are extremely annoying as you will find yourself having to click through what is seemingly endless selections before finally getting to a menu of purpose and, finally, the actual game.

SONGS
They say this one differs from Guitar Hero because these are all "pop" songs yet they aren't (not to mention, numerous pop songs have been on past GH incarnations).  There are songs from bands like The Rolling Stones ("Honky Tonk Women"), Marvin Gaye, Evanescence, Poison, and Cheap Trick.  While these artists quality can be argued, they certainly arent't he definition of "pop".  Also, for a game titled "Band Hero", I find it peculiar that one of the lead artists with multiple songs is solo artist Taylor Swift.

GRAPHICS
The graphics are horrible.  After taking a step up on next gen consoles with the later Guitar Heros, Activision decided to take this one a few steps back in quality.  The characters are choppy at best and is reminiscent of Nintendo Wii graphics (and I was playing on PS3).

When you pick a character (say Pandora, for the sake of our writer of the same name), you can sing as her or play guitar, etc.  But, you may also notice the same character in the background playing drums or some other instrument.  This just seems lazy to me.

Other complaints are the inability at times to control anything using the guitar when in band mode and the PS3 "Trophy" notifications popping up right over the lyrics when singing.

On the plus side, the ability to skip songs is a nice addition (along with the "jump in" ability) and the game seems to play more nicely with Rock Band controllers than Guitar Hero ever has.  Aside from that, there is really nothign to be desired in this game and I'd probably just save the money and either rent it or skip it altogether.