I owned one and I enjoyed it. It's a solid, challenging game with plenty going on that looks really nice. It always kept me interested. I only sold mine to buy a Transformers Pro and honestly that was a huge mistake as I wanted Transformers gone within the first couple of weeks. With Popeye you usually hear the same complaints, often from people who have never played the game or played it very sparingly. I thought the "I can't see" complaints were a bit overhyped. Those two gobble hole shots are big and the shots both feel good. You don't need to see the shot all the way to the gobble hole to make it and the pops even help knock the ball in there on a missed shot. The other big complaint is the environmental theme. It didn't bother me, it was Popeye overall so I could take it or leave it. Biggest complaints for me were the upper playfield rules were really lacking. Finding Sweetpea in the maze is harder than beating the wizard mode. Also there is a fun shot up there only for an EB that hardly ever lights. The modes and rules could be a bit more fleshed out too. The whole right side of the game from the skill shot, to the right side of the upper playfield to the right drop down ramp just really feels underutilized. Popeye is one of those games that would really benefit from a home grown code update to help add depth/meaning to some aspects of the game. Overall, it feels like at some point in development the decision was made that what they had was good enough and it looks like development stopped cold at that point which is too bad.

I paid $1000 for my first one. It was a routed, filthy game but cleaned up very well. If I had the room, I would pick up Popeye again, but not at $2500+.