The long-awaited “Spore” has gotten a lot of attention, and not in the way publisher Electronic Arts wanted.

The quality of “Spore,” an eagerly anticipated evolution/civilization simulator, has been overshadowed by protests over the game’s digital rights management software.

“Spore” requires an Internet connection to authenticate the game, and the user gets only three activations before it’s locked. After that, the owner must call EA support and be approved for reactivation.

This has players up in arms, with accusations ranging from the game being a rental to the DRM software being a virus.

People are so upset that “Spore” has more than 2,000 one-star ratings on Amazon.com, none related to actual gameplay.

While I tend to think the DRM is a bit much, I also agree that pirating games is wrong and that companies have a right to defend their products against it.

Unfortunately, all this hoopla has overshadowed what I found to be a fun and refreshingly unique game.

There are five stages of play in “Spore,” each different from one another but using the same creature the player creates at the start.

Cell stage: The first stage starts with you controlling a tiny cell. After choosing whether your cell is carnivorous or an herbivore, you swim around the ooze, eating things smaller than you to build up your DNA. With DNA points, you can make it evolve however you want by adding body parts.

Creature stage: After you’ve gathered enough DNA, your creature grows legs and moves to land. The gameplay is similar to the cell stage in that you run around and eat plants or attack other creatures, all while adding parts to your creature.

Tribe stage: After your brain grows large enough, your creature becomes sentient — and you’re no longer able to change its physiology — and puts together a tribe. The goal is to either wipe out all the other villages or convince them to ally with you.

Civilization stage: Once your creature becomes dominant, a civilization develops. At this point, the game gets deep. You can design buildings, vehicles, anything you would use. “Spore” becomes more of a strategy game, and you again must take out other cities by force or persuasion.

Space stage: The final stage is the most complex. Your species can travel around in space, and you meet other life forms, run missions for them, abduct plants and animals, terraform planets and collect rare items, all while earning money. I enjoyed this stage the most.

While each of these stages is noticeably separate from the others — and I found the tribe and civilization stages a bit boring — the creature you created in the beginning ties it all together. And that’s just cool.

Even better, every creature created by every player is uploaded to a server, then redistributed into other player’s games. As you encounter other species, they often were created by other players (their names are on them).

“Spore” is ambitious, and while its mid-game play sometimes seems a bit dull or oversimplified, the overall package is unlike anything else.

If the DRM controversy is too much, then don’t buy “Spore.” Certainly don’t pirate it. But if you’re willing to put up with it, “Spore” is a treat.