For what it's worth, I will say this was the funnest game I played at E3 last year. Playing with 4-players is a lot of fun. It does sorta make it feel like a Mario Party game, but the cat suit is really a blast.
The graphics aren't mind blowing, but they are easy on the eyes and it was one of the few games at the Nintendo booth that appeared to be using anti-aliasing.
I had more fun with this than Mario Kart 8 and DKC: TF for what it's worth.
The only thing that I found kind of annoying is it's very easy for players to wander off the screen which automatically puts you in a bubble, so people were getting put into a bubble constantly. 4-player is pretty hectic, but I would say it's better than NSMB 4-player.
What I would suggest to Nintendo is DON'T skimp on the music. Throw away the NSMB/3D Land formula of 70s porno sounding midi tracks and throw in some nice new musical themes, perhaps even a few orchestral tracks (like the Galaxy series). And get more inventive with later level motifs ... the old NSMB/3D Land ones are getting stale seriously, Galaxy was good because it did things like lava + ice levels mixed into one and what not.
Doing that I think would go a long way in satiating a lot of complaints from Nintendo fans that this isn't a real "3D Mario". It's just a matter of being a little more tuned in to some details.
