We've put a lot of ideas into the game so that fans can have fun interacting with our music, getting inside our body of work and learning about the band's history.

Star Power can be collected by completing marked note phrases correctly, and by using the whammy bar during sustained notes; Star Power is released by lifting the guitar controller vertically or by pressing the Select button in order to double the scoring multiplier and dramatically affect the Rock Meter.

The Career mode features one Boss Battle (against Joe Perry) as introduced in Guitar Hero III.

Billboard announced that the band Aerosmith was "working closely with the makers of Guitar Hero World Tour, which will be dedicated to the group's music.

"[6] Guitar Hero: World Tour was also confirmed as in development following the announcement of the merger between Activision and Vivendi Games in December 2007.

Originally, a cover version of "Same Old Song and Dance" was present in the game, but Neversoft president Joel Jewett noted that the quality of the recording was poor.

"[3] This also came at a time where Activision was attempting to expand the Guitar Hero franchise, and fans expressed a strong interest in playing a game focused solely on Aerosmith's works, according to RedOctane's Dusty Welch.

[3] Another producer for the game, Aaron Habibipour, stated that Aerosmith was one of the five "holy grail" musical groups as polled by Activision.

[10] Newsweek reported that Aerosmith's license allows for exclusive use of their songs within the Guitar Hero series for a limited amount of time, preventing their use within other rhythm games such as Rock Band.

Similar to Slash, Tom Morello, and Bret Michaels in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, each member of Aerosmith participated in motion capture to accurately recreate themselves digitally for the game.

[12] While Aerosmith was able to provide many of the original master recordings to the development team, the band re-recorded the four songs chosen for the game from their first album: "Make It", "Movin' Out", "Dream On" and "Mama Kin".

[13] Joe Perry re-mastered the lead guitar on many songs to interact with the gameplay better,[14] while Steven Tyler re-recorded some of the vocals.

[10] Additionally, the team re-evaluated the difficulty of the game based on feedback from players of Guitar Hero III who felt that there were "too many brick walls for casual fans".

Activision released Aerosmith's "Dream On" to the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store as a free Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock downloadable song.

[18] Target had Chip Ganassi's #40 car, driven by Dario Franchitti, painted to celebrate the release of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for a NASCAR race on June 29, 2008.

This bundle includes the Gibson Les Paul controller and a special red faceplate with the Aerosmith logo in white.

[26] The difficulty of the game was not to be found as hard as Guitar Hero III due to the "very riff-friendly guitarist" Joe Perry;[30] while reviewers felt this was a good correction from the previous game, they also noted that the easiness of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith led to some bland tiers, repetitive musical sections, and lack of any significant difficulty curve.

[35] According to Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith has made more money for the band than any sales of their previous albums.