The Donkey Kong Island Report - Hours of Pain, or Hours of Pleasure?

Coffee Beans
     First, happy Valentine's Day to all of you!  I hope you all had a great day, and perhaps had the chance to spend it with others.  For this report, we're taking another look at Donkey Kong Country Returns!
     Donkey Kong Country Returns was released 86 days ago, and we last looked at the game-play hours as they were reported on January 17.
     I'm including a video of my wife and I playing World 1-1, Jungle Hijinxs, with this week's data report, and you can find the game-play video in the "Filtered Thoughts" section down below.

     How many hours have Wii owners spent on Donkey Kong Island in the last 29 days, and were those hours of pain, or pleasure?  Let's take a look!

Hours shown are for the United States of America, not world-wide.

Approx. Number of Players Reporting Data:
     How many players does Donkey Kong Country Returns have reporting their play-time data?
     Donkey Kong Country Returns now has 111,906 Wii owners reporting their game-play data through the Wii's Nintendo Channel.

Reported Player Increase:
     Donkey Kong Country Returns has seen an increase of about 34,904 gamers reporting game-play data, since the data reported on January 17.

Average & Total Game-Play Hours Reported:
     Donkey Kong Country Returns now has 1,523,884 Total Hours of game-play reported, an increase of 693,524 Total Hours of game-play in the last 29 days.
     The average play-time for DKCR is 13 Hours 37 Minutes "Per person" reporting data, which is an increase of 2 Hours 49 Minutes more than the last average reported.
     The average play-time per session(or day) reported for Donkey Kong Country Returns is just over 1 Hour 59 Minutes.

Sale Rank & Advertised Price:
     Donkey Kong Country Returns' Amazon.com sale rank is #43, and it is currently selling for $43.99.
     (Sale rank and price recorded around 11:45PM, on 2-14-11)

Review Score Averages:
     Donkey Kong Country Returns' "professional" review score average is 87.69%, based on 48 reviews on GameRankings.com.

     DKCR has a 4.5 out of 5 Stars rating on Amazon.com, based on 215 customer reviews.
     Donkey Kong Country Returns' customer review score average is now 90.41%, when converted to a 100% review scale.  You can see the customer review score breakdown for DKCR in the image below:

     (Review score averages recorded around 11:45PM, on 2-14-11)

Filtered Thoughts:
     Since the last report, Donkey Kong Country Returns has crossed 1,000,000 Total Hours of game-play reported, in 65 days reported.  I think it's interesting, though not unexpected, that Donkey Kong Country Returns took 65 days to cross one million Total Hours of game-play reported after it released, while New Super Mario Bros. Wii took just 44 days to cross one million Total Hours reported after it released.
     As for the play-time with the game in our house, my wife and I have completed Donkey Kong Country Returns 100% (102% now!), since I did the last report, and we had a blast with the game...even though we aren't "officially" done yet.
     The video below is of my wife and I playing through World 1-1, Jungle Hijinxs, in Donkey Kong Country Returns.  I'm playing as Donkey Kong and she's playing as Diddy Kong in the video.
     SPOILER ALERT - Also, if you don't want to know how to get all the K-O-N-G letters or where all the puzzle pieces are in World 1-1, you shouldn't watch the video, as we do collect them all in the video.  Here's the video:


     I think DKCR will continue to see a steady increase in game-play hours, but like I stated in the last report, Donkey Kong Country Returns' Amazon.com sale rank is still lower than New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Mario Kart Wii.  While DKCR has definitely sold well for Nintendo, I wonder how the game is going to end up with sales in a year's time.

     While we enjoyed our overall time with DKCR, many of the hours/levels were agonizingly painful (in a video game difficulty sense!)!  
     Being today was Valentine's Day though, if you're looking for a video game to spend time with a "special" someone in your life, I would highly recommend Donkey Kong Country Returns...just beware the game is challenging, but it will give you many hours of pleasure.

Questions:
     Have any of you been playing Donkey Kong Country Returns in the last few weeks, and if so, have any of you beaten it?  Also, have any of you perhaps played through the entire game co-op with another person, like my wife and I, and found it to be really enjoyable?  Or, was your experience more "pain", than "pleasure"?

If anybody is interested in Donkey Kong Country Returns, you can see prices for it on Amazon.com linked below: