Will, I don't think you'll have to wait for spore 2 for multiplayer - I think it's built in to this one. I remember watching some presentation video on it, and they talked about how every creature in the world and the world itself is shaped by other players.

It'd be neat to play a game like that 'co-op', where a bunch of people are evolving their own organisms in the same environment, so you'd have evolve to compete with each other. Talk about 'intelligent design' creationism!