Darkspore is, or soon to be was, an ARPG based on the creature creation system from Spore. While that might sound incredible on paper, in reality your options were extremely limited which combined with the generic gameplay led to Darkspore's quick fade in to obscurity.

Unfortunately, due to its always-online requirement, even if you enjoy Darkspore and play it regularly you won't be able to do so once the servers shut down permanently on March 1st, so if you're up for giving it one last shot now would be the time. Here's the brief announcement message from EA:

"1st December 2015: Today, we are announcing that we will be closing the doors on Darkspore, effective March 1st, 2016. It’s been a great run and we hope that you have enjoyed your time with Darkspore. While it can be hard to say goodbye, keep in mind there are tons of awesome games available for free on Origin. Enjoy 48-hours of fun with Game Time titles such as The Sims 4 and Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare or download the latest Origin On the House release and add it to your library.

There is always something great to play on Origin and we hope to see you in another game very soon!"

While its always sad when a game gets officially shut down, Darkspore simply wasn't relevant for many, many years now. A fact proven by the announcement message that got the whole thing over with in the first two sentences and then proceeded to talk about other, unrelated and much more interesting topics.

If there is any lesson to be learned from this its that always-online systems suck the underside of a badger because one day the game you paid good money for will simply cease to be and that is it. You might think its not a big deal this time around because its just Darkspore, a game barely anyone played as is, but eventually even the most popular & classic always-online games will shut down and take everyone and everything with them.