Well, well. I'm playing my 360 again, albeit for just a Lego game. I'm getting myself hyped for Lego City Undercover, so I thought I'd finally break this one open. This is the first Lego game that I've played that doesn't follow the standard format of the older Lego games. There is no central hub that connects all the game's chapters. Instead, you select a chapter, and it starts out you in a level right away. It's short and sweet, and there's no secrets to scrounge around for. Once you beat the level, you can then explore a portion of the chapter's own hub level. Only after you've completed enough of the chapter can you really explore the hub to your heart's content.
So in essence, it plays the same, but it's just arranged differently. You can still acquire the cheats, but now you run around looking for things to bash instead of keeping an eye open for that well placed hidden area that contained the red brick. There's still lots of characters and vehicles to unlock, but it's a bit weird not having a centralized area to do all your purchasing. You have to roam around the city and look for what you want to unlock. Also, each hub world has 10 bonus levels that have treasure chests which hold pieces that build a vehicle to take you to the Super Bonus Level. There is a LOT more emphasis on stud collecting, and it seems less empasis on exploration.
So far, I haven't seen any mini kits to collect, which is disappointing; I love those. Plus,several of the story levels were incredibly short. Also, it seems to be my imagination but I believe controlling vehicles is actually worse. You can actually role them now, which someone thought would make the game even more fun. 
It also doesn't seem to be as funny as previous Lego games, but I'm only a chapter in, so maybe it will pick up.
The graphics are fantastic, though, even by today's standards. It does a great job of depicting Lego bricks against realistic backdrops. Of course, you got to love the Indy music and the sounds of blowing up blocks and collectings studs. It's got enough staples that fans of Lego games will enjoy, but there's still something about the game that just seems... off. I can't complain really, though, as I got the game as a gift, and even then it only cost 20 dollars.
One of the worst Lego games IMO, that and the first Batman one, I have played them all with the exception of the Pirates of the Caribbean ones. I thought the change in format was interesting, but it was quite there, later games seemed to get it better. The best one I have played by far was the recent LOTR one.
I had great fun with this... but I can't do too many Lego games back to back... the repetition really kicks in when you're looking at another 20+ levels of essentially the same gameplay.
I much preferred the new hub system to the old one though.
Lego Indy 2 and the second Lego Batman are the only Lego games I haven't played. I wasn't too big a fan of the first Lego Indy, though.
The Harry Potter ones remain my favourites, helped a lot by the character abilities revolving around spells instead of canned archetypes.
We have it, and I played it for a bit but I found a lot of the same irritations as you did. Christopher really enjoyed it, but I liked lego starwars way better.
