From my understanding there will be a bunch of pre-made levels thrown into the game from the start, so players can play the game from the get go. It may not have a story attached to it, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter because Mario storylines are throwaways anyway.
Plus I think calling Nintendo greedy because it doesn't look as good LBP is disingenuous. They are offering four graphical styles that are interchangeable at an instance. I hardly consider that lazy.