[3] Additional routines and difficulty levels are unlocked for songs by collecting flash cards by getting "Flawless" ratings on individual moves.

[8][9] Harmonix director Matthew Nordhaus also teased the presence of tougher alternate routines for individual songs, aimed particularly at expert players.

[8] Unlike previous installments in the franchise, Spotlight places a heavy emphasis on downloadable content and the ability for players to purchase songs on an À la carte basis; Nordhaus noted that due to improvements in motion capture technology and the need to perform fewer QA tests because of the improved Kinect accuracy (specifically noting the need to do large levels of tuning for hand detection on the Xbox 360 version), Harmonix staff could produce new routines for the game in just "days" rather than months.

Emphasizing that players wanted to have quicker in-game access to current hit music, Nordhaus stated that Harmonix would now be able to release new songs as DLC while they are still charting.

[8][9][7][13][14] GameSpot gave Spotlight an 8 out of 10, praising its cleaner interface and dropping of extraneous features for "[removing] the obstacles between you and just getting out there and dancing", and its new business model as a "tremendous value" for players.

However, its minimalistic feedback for player performance was considered a double-edged sword due to the new unlock system's emphasis on rewarding the learning of individual moves.