Fergie's "London Bridge" was the last DLC song released for Dance Central in March 2013. Since then, things have been quiet with the franchise. During E3 2014, a press release revealed that Dance Central was coming back as a downloadable title for the Xbox One. On the surface, Dance Central Spotlight looks like a return to the formula that garnered many fans when it debuted with the original Kinect. Dig a bit deeper, though, and you'll see that it comes in with far less polish than expected.

You select a character you'd like to use, a song to dance to, and the difficulty level. From there, you proceed to mimic the dancer as best as you can. The closer you mimic the move, the higher the score you get. That also equates to a star rating that's given out at the end of the song.

There are a few things that Dance Central handles differently from the Just Dance series. Flash cards are present on the side to show you which move is coming up next. While you're performing these moves, the game uses the character's limbs to show which part of the body may be out of place. If your right arm is going in the wrong direction, for example, it'll be highlighted in red on the character to show you what's causing you to miss the perfect rating. Also, there are various difficulty levels for each song, so you won't repeat routines unless you're playing the same song at the same difficulty level.

Dance Central Spotlight is the first digital-only release of the series, and the change in medium also changes the game's structure. The one that's obvious even before you boot up the game is the cost. For $10, you're given 10 songs, most of which are pretty big hits from the past two years. Like most music games, the chances that the soundtrack will be perfect for all players isn't high, but like past games, DLC is available to help you customize the game soundtrack to your liking. There are 45 songs available in the marketplace as of the game's launch date, and those who have already invested in the DLC from the previous titles get those songs for free. The DLC songs come in at the price of $1.99, a dollar cheaper than the Xbox 360 DLC songs, so the expansion of the soundtrack is now more affordable. With the reputation Harmonix has garnered regarding the frequency of DLC releases, it is almost a certainty that there will be a flood of songs hitting the marketplace in the weeks to come.

There are two things that are interesting about this setup. If you buy the song packs using the in-game store, you don't actually download anything. Unlike the singles, which automatically download when you buy them, purchasing the song pack simply moves the designated selection of songs to your purchased pile, where you'll have to highlight the new songs and download them separately before you play them. Secondly, there isn't currently a plan to transfer the on-disc songs from the first three Dance Central games. This is disappointing when you consider the number of songs on those discs and the fact that users of the first two games could import the songs into the third game.

The move to a digital-only download means that some cuts had to be made in several areas of the game beyond the small song list. The roster of dancers has been reduced to six from the first two games. The number of modes has also been reduced to two. Those looking for something similar to the campaign modes in the second and third games won't find that here. Finally, don't expect anything in the way of cosmetic unlockables, like new outfits, backgrounds or similar surprises. What you see when you first boot up the game is exactly what you get after playing it for several hours.

The first of the two modes is Workout mode, and it's slightly different from the older games. You can choose your workout duration to be anywhere from 10 to 90 minutes. Then, you can select which routine types you want to include, and you enter your weight and height. From there, the game randomly selects a song and routine type, and it displays the amount of calories it estimates you're burning in the session. It works great as a method of quick play if you don't have a song preference, but keep in mind that the only breaks it gives are between songs.

For players who aren't that interested in using the game as a workout tool, Dance mode is where you'll spend the bulk of your time. When you play a song for the first time, you'll start with the beginner routine. As you play through the song and correctly perform a move a few times, you can capture the move. Capturing a certain number of moves per song allows you to unlock new routines in that song. There are a total of eight routines per track, and that sort of makes up for the removal of modes that would normally lengthen the game experience. The available routines either add new moves or come up with something completely different for that song based on its theme. For those who want to practice a particular move in a routine, you can call out for a practice session during the song.

The idea behind the routine unlocks is great, since it keeps the game fresh, especially for those who want to squeeze the most out of the game without going to the DLC songs. It would have been better if the beginner difficulty level didn't feel like so much of a slog. The moves for each song in this level are easy enough to perform, but each time a move is introduced, you're essentially forced to repeat that move close to 10 times before proceeding to the next move, which has to be repeated another 10 times. On average, each song only has nine moves in this difficulty level, and with the game playing full versions of songs instead of truncated ones, the repetition is noticeable, and veteran players will quickly grow bored. It gets better with the higher difficulty level, and the alternate routines display more move variety, but it is highly recommended that you power through all of the beginner stages in each song before asking a more seasoned player to check out the game.

Perhaps the biggest blunder in Dance Central Spotlight is its instability when you begin to play with another player. The first time the game was played with a partner, it crashed during the freestyle section of a song. The second time it was played, with the freestyle option turned off, the game crashed at the end of the song. Crashes kept occurring until several songs were played and several game reboots had occurred. According to the official forums, it seems as if all of the crashing is related to the unlocking of Achievements by both players; the unlocking of multiple Achievements in the same song causes the crash. So far, the solution is to either play the game without a second profile active, which denies the second player from obtaining Achievements, or simply powering through the crashes until you obtain all of the easy Achievements by both profiles.

If you're gearing up to play this in a group situation, that means doing some prep work to clear out the potential crashes. For a game with such a big name attached, the crashes are horrifying when you consider how easy they are to generate. Either this area of the game was never thoroughly checked before the game was released, or it was glossed over so it could make its release date in hopes that the developers would release a patch in time. As of this writing, that patch hasn't been released yet.

The Dance Central titles on the Xbox 360 have remained a shining example of how to do things right with the Kinect peripheral from a control perspective, and the Xbox One iteration is no different. Even though it doesn't employ any moves that require the precision of the new Kinect, it captures movements rather well and doesn't seem to misinterpret anything. Calling out for practice mode in the middle of a song is done without much difficulty, and using voice commands for the rest of the game is equally as easy. Even though you can use a regular control pad for menu selection, using gestures is easier due to how the game handles the process. Users must grab the arrow and swipe if they want to move through the selections, and pushing to select an option doesn't register any bad selections. There's some precision in this section, and it bodes well for those who want to show off what the new Kinect can do.

Soundtrack aside, the game's sound feels a bit empty. Character banter is limited solely to the selection menu, as they stay completely silent before and after each song plays. They have quite a few lines when they speak, but without post-dance commentary, it feels rather lifeless. There's also no crowd noise, and while that gives you an opportunity to get a feel for the song's beat before starting the routine, it also means you don't get the cheering that comes with finishing the performance. Unless you're in a party situation where people are likely to cheer, the omission of the cheering effect is puzzling.

Graphically, Dance Central Spotlight doesn't feel like it evolved much from the Xbox 360 iterations. In some cases, it would be safe to say that the quality in this department has gone backward. The backgrounds are much more dynamic than before; the game fluctuates between the normal and neon-soaked version of each location, and the locations constantly change over the course of one song. You may start in a darkened basement, but you'll quickly go to an airport runway and a high school gym in a seemingly random order.

Your main character sports little details, like fluid hair and colorful outfits with lots of accessories. Your background dancers have also increased in number since the last game. They don't sport as much detail as the main characters, and in some situations they'll merely be silhouettes instead of fully realized bodies. The animations are fine, and it is nice to see the background dancers go with their own routines instead of just copying your main character, but the moves don't connect as fluidly as they did before. Strangely enough, the transition moves are fine, but the repeated moves have awkward pauses or movements. Perhaps the strangest thing about the graphics is that it moves at 30 frames per second instead of 60 frames, like the three previous titles. The frame rate change doesn't necessarily ruin the game, but unless the additional background dancers take lots of power to render, there doesn't seem to be a clear-cut reason for the drop.

It speaks volumes about the core mechanics when Dance Central Spotlight can still be considered a good game despite its issues. The demand for some accuracy in your moves makes it a challenge that can be brought into a party environment without alienating players of any skill type. While the new model gives you fewer tracks up front, it allows for deeper soundtrack customization, and it does so in a way that's cheaper than it was on the Xbox 360. However, the grinding needed to unlock some of the more interesting routines can get tiresome, especially for veterans of the series, and the crashes in the multiplayer portion are unacceptable when you consider how easy they are to trigger. If that portion is fixed, then feel free to add a full point to the score, but for solo players who don't mind performing the same songs multiple times to unlock the exciting content for parties, Dance Central Spotlight is a fairly solid purchase for $10.

Score: 7.0/10