The handicapped characters are what made multiplayer fun longer-term for me (and my son). We worked our way through all of the character specific win achievements by having one of us take the wildly handicapped one, and the other take a reasonable character and try to protect the other… if playing alone, I imagine the handicapped characters would be more frustrating than fun; the handicaps are just so crippling in some cases.

Agreed with all of your points, basically, but yes, the game is worth $6.