What I don't like is the modular "game pack" structure of the system.

Breaking it down, each pack is an encapsulated compilation of old titles that play on the Arcade engine. But rather than selling each compilation pack for a budget game price, they broke the pricing into separate pieces, each having to be activated/purchased separately.

It's good since it avoids the typical compilation issue of buying a bunch of old games when you only wanted a few (or maybe even one or two) of the titles included.

It's sort of bad because it really doesn't offer much different from retail compilations of classic games beyond the arcade facade.

Personally, I liked Namco Museum with Home integration much more. The games themselves were playable separately, but offered cross game rewards in addition to in game trophies and points (for leveling). And then you had the option of playing your Namco games in your private spaces or in the public Namco Arcade while inside Home.

But one good compilation is not comparable with an arcade jukebox that will be receiving constant updates/modules.

Using avatars in Arcade is really superficial as you don't even manually navigate through the arcade itself; the avatars may as well not be there other than to provide the illusion that you're in a Home-like interactive environment. Functionally, it's only a graphical menu system that looks like an arcade.

MS may well have just structured the arcade system to work more or less like the Wii's VC.

I personally like it because I like retro games..though current selection doesn't appeal to me. The only title I'm interested in is Road Fighter, but I'm looking forward to future releases.
About the prices...well, 240 MSP (3 bucks) for arcade game doesn't sound bad at all, but for atari and intellivision it's kind of expensive. I'd pay no more than 160 for them.

I wonder if the love of game room is directly perportional to age?

yeah... because you know you're not going to buying no Dreamcast games for 3 bucks

Begs the question, with Atari so old now, what is an acceptable price to pay for these games? I sometimes think £4:00 is too much for PsOne games on the psn but at the same time, it kinda makes sense I guess, if you think a game is worth it, price shouldn't be an issue.

some games hold more value to some than others... I bought Adventure for 360 and PC... cause sometimes I just need to play some while I'm posting on VGC

like I said, if YOU think it's worth it, price shouldn't be an issue.

$5 is a bit much for these games. If they were $2 to take anywhere I'd probably buy a few.

I loved it when I watched the trailer of it, but after downloading it, man Microsoft really dropped the ball on this one. The whole Game Room setup is just an illusion. It's no different than a high tech interactive menu like you see in games like Colin McCrae's Dirt. The game prices are atrocious, and only the most dedicated and willing to drop good money into this are going to get any value from an arcade room setup. Those of us willing to buy a game or two will find little value in it. This is where compilation pricing comes in handy. It doesn't help that for 1200MS points you can just mosey your lazy butt over to the Game Marketplace and purchase Intellivision Lives. That has 60 games on it, and likely has every game available in this Game Room and every one that'll be released in the next month or two. A Konami pack, Atari pack and Intellivision pack for 800pts for maybe 10 games or so could have gone a long way to making this worthwhile.

Not to mention the game teases me by putting an air hockey table in the background of the arcade. Make that playable! Give me the basketball shooting game! Give me skeeball! Let me win tickets and use them to unlock crap like stickers and rubber lizards! Damn you Microsoft for always making me think of the good ideas! 

Things are still a work in progress. It looks like late April is the target date for the next set of games to come out, then they go weekly. As of now, it has had its share of glitches, server not working right, and so on. I had lost game progress I had made in the game leveling up, due to lock up issue. I am trying to recover now from it. I still have the same unlockables. It is just the medals I ended up losing.

So, at this point it is still a work in progress. I am treating it now as an open beta, with late April being the official launch date.

Anyhow, on the note of Game Room, I want it to be an own your own arcade simulator thing, so that bit of my past, a desire to own an arcade can let me do let's pretend. And here are details on what I would like to see added:
http://forums.xbox.com/31873256/ShowPost.aspx