The display has changed slightly, with a new 'Star Meter' to the right of the play area. The Wii and PlayStation 2 versions of the game include 'Broken, Beat & Scarred', 'Cyanide', and 'My Apocalypse' since they are not compatible with the Death Magnetic download. The 'Death Magnetic' is playable to those who downloaded it for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. All features that were available in Guitar Hero World Tour are available along with some new ones. It allows players to use double bass kick pedals.
This is the first game in the series to support Expert+, a new difficulty for Drums.
Some of these songs (all of the Metallica songs) were exportable to other Guitar Hero games. There is 49 songs total, 28 which will be Metallica and the other 21 will be guest acts. Just like in World Tour, the player is able to play guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.