I picked up a copy for the PC as research, but haven't had a chance to actually play it yet. For some reason my machine tells me that I can't play it because of parental controls, but I don't have that trouble running any other games of any rating. I may try it on my other PC in a bit and will try to give you some feedback if I do.
OK, I did get a chance to try it out and played through the first level (with three smallish stages and a boss fight to complete that first level and unlock one costume). So far I would say it seems pretty well made and very similar to the TT Games LEGO games (LEGO Star Wars, etc) with fewer platforming frustrations. I mean, it is
very similar to those games, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since it seems pretty well executed. It has the same sort of mix between platforming, button-mashing combat, puzzle solving, collectibles, and even the same death penalty of just respawning right near where you were and losing a few Mickey head tokens.
So far the camera has stayed more orthogonal to the play field for any platforming, which makes it easier to judge jumps and not get frustrated falling all the time. When you're in combat it can be a bit hectic with lots of enemies around you and I did die several times, but without any real penalty I didn't mind. And I'm sure if I was paying more attention to the actual combat or had a co-op partner I would have died less. The boss fight wasn't too difficult or frustrating, and it seemed like you could probably complete it with enough time despite skill level. It had a couple stages to it, and was more well designed than I expected, so that was neat.
Oh, they also have little in-level challenges that generally open up as you clear an area of enemies. An arcade cabinet will drop down and you can activate it if you want, and it will lock you in a little area as you complete a timed challenge. One of them was to just defeat 20 enemies in a time limit, another was to avoid getting blown up by some dropping bombs, and a third had you grabbing and saving actual rag dolls in a time limit.
I'm assuming you would be playing this on a console, but even this old PC here I would say it looks pretty good. Nice stylistic cartoon-y graphics and some decent character animations (though perhaps not as over the top as they could have been). It seems to have a nice levity and humor element, and just in those first levels I found 3 different cute things to ride (sheep, donkey, pig) for mostly no reason, so I'd imagine the kids would love that.
So yeah, based on my limited playtime I would think that kids in your age ranges would probably love this, and I certainly didn't mind playing it so some co-op with a parent might be less painful than it is with some other kids games.
