I went to a Wal-mart today to pick up a few Skylanders and the shelving for the figures was completely bare. It looked as a if a hurricane had swept through the aisles and took every figure on the racks. The area was also a mess like a mass stampede had went through the aisle and demolished everything in sight. I am surprised the store did not shut that part of the store down for repairs.
That is how it looked for months after Christmas last year when they got popular.
That's funny, where I'm at (outside Raleigh, NC), there isn't much of a shortage with the exception of some of the store exclusives.
My wife and I are having a blast with the game. Levels are much more substantive and varied than Spyro's Adventure, and it feels like everything has more polish to it.
I feel the Exact Opposite about 3DS and Console Version of Giants compared to the original. The only thing I can really say improved are its harder to find everything.
I can only speak to the PS3 version, as I have not opened the 3DS version, but one of my biggest complaints of the original (despite the fact that my wife and I loved the game) was that the majority of the levels were pretty cookie-cutter in terms of the level structure and how to progress through the levels, with the exception of the background/theme. Nearly all of the levels also felt pretty short, as well.
For Giants, the levels are definitely longer (at least they take us longer to progress through when we play them, as we're usually exploring them more thoroughly). I find myself having to actually employ strategies when approaching a mob in this game to effectively dispatch them, whereas in Spyro's Adventure it was basically:
A) approach mob
B) mash favorite move for skylander
C) kill everything in mob
I also feel that the new Skylanders have much more varied movesets, which makes the experience completely different depending on which one you're playing as.
And not that this point is as important to me as everything else, but I think the humor and story is greatly improved over the first. Everything looks to have better flow and character design (IMO). I've never had my game crash once, whereas Spyro's Adventure has crashed on us a handful of times. To me, that all makes it a much more polished and enjoyable experience.