Guitar Hero 5 adds several new features, such as drop-in/drop-out play, bands composed of any combination of available instruments, a Rockfest competitive mode consisting of several various scoring mechanisms, and both song-specific and general Challenges to unlock new avatars, clothing, and other extras in the game.

Many of these changes were added to make the game a more social experience, allowing players across a range of skill levels to be able to play cooperatively and competitively against each other both locally and online.

Should the meter fall below a certain threshold, the song will end prematurely with the player booed off the stage by a virtual audience.

Specially marked sections of the song, if completed correctly, help to build up Star Power, which can then be activated through an action with the controller to further double the current multiplier (up to 8x).

Open gig Challenges are presented by sponsors within the game, and are based on performance aspects such as scoring a certain number of points using Star Power or using the guitar controller's whammy bar continuously for a length of time.

[6] The GHMix2.0 mode allows one to precisely create songs up to 10 min, and includes pre-defined sample tracks that can be modified on a note-by-note basis as desired.

While songs that violate copyright will still be removed from the service, Neversoft will be less aggressive about this and will rely more on user feedback on such issues.

[12] Avatars of famous musicians are part of the game, performing for songs by that artist and available as unlockable characters.

[13] The avatar includes the T-shirt design based on Daniel Johnston's "Frog" that Cobain had popularized.

There are also unlockable fictional characters like Skeleton, Golden God, Shadow, Frankenrocker, and Gerald Contest Winner.

For the first time, also, sponsored clothing pieces can be used in customization (these being shoes from Vans, Dr. Martens and Converse) There is no money in the game leaving everything available to use, including unlockables.

The "Mii Freestyle" mode, introduced in World Tour, is also present, and with changes to address some of the issues with less-skilled players trying to play well together.

A "Guitar Hero Nintendo Ecosystem" is introduced in Guitar Hero 5, letting the Wii version communicate with the Nintendo DS, including a stage manager/video editor DS controller feature in conjunction with the Mii Freestyle mode, and a new game mode called "Roadie Battle".

[29] Guitar Hero spokesman Eric Hollreiser said consumer research showed continued strong demand for the various versions.

The Party Play mode was inspired by recognizing that past Guitar Hero games made it difficult to jump into without maneuvering through a number of menus and selection screens.

The mode was designed to be used at social gatherings, and was adopted to use whatever instrument controllers that players already had available, thus allowing for various other combinations beyond the standard four-person band.

Like other Guitar Hero controllers, the guitar-shaped unit features five colored fret buttons on the neck of the guitar, a strum bar to mimic the act of strumming, a whammy bar to alter the pitch of a note, and additional buttons specific to the game console for maneuvering through the game's menus.

[33][34] For the month of September 2009, players in the US that purchase Guitar Hero 5 would be able to redeem a code with the game to receive a free copy of Guitar Hero: Van Halen prior to its retail release with the packaging's offer sticker (printable if lost), a copy of the receipt and a barcode received upon registration.

[35] A television commercial was filmed at the Playboy Mansion and was featured in the 29 November 2009 episode of The Girls Next Door.

[4] Brian Bright, project director for the game, has called the track list "fresh", with 25% of the songs released in the last 18 months, and more than 50% from the current decade.

[39] For Nirvana's "Lithium", the master recordings did not have the appropriate tracks to build the note track from, and they opted to use the live version of the song from the 1992 Reading Festival, notably famous for Cobain appearing on a wheelchair at first amid rumors of his failing health, but shown to be a ruse as Cobain took the stage and celebrated the recent birth of his daughter Frances Bean.

[56] Arthur Gies of GameSpy noted that by simplification of the interface, "Neversoft stripped Guitar Hero down to what works and built up from there".

[50][54] Chris Watters of GameSpot considered this mode to be "accessible, welcoming, and delightfully low key".

[50] Brudvig noted that while "the goal was to include a bit of everything", the diversity of the track list ensures "that nobody will like everything on the disc".

[56] Gies noted that while the guitar difficulty progression in the Career mode was strong and better than in previous games, it leaves the vocals and drummer progression "all over the place",[54] while Schiesel considered the vocals parts "somewhat rough" in comparison to The Beatles: Rock Band.

[51][53][54] The improvements made in GHTunes were seen as "leaps and bounds" above the original offering in World Tour,[52][53] though was still considered to be too unwieldy for average players.

[54][73] Shortly after the game's release, it was discovered that once players unlocked the Kurt Cobain Character Pack (as well as that for any other of the included famous musicians), they could use that character for any other song on disc, leading to what some have considered to be awkward virtual performances of Cobain singing songs from completely different genres;[74][75] user-created videos of these performances that had attracted the attention to this issue have since been removed from video-sharing sites like YouTube by Activision.

[76] Previous games in the series that feature known musicians also allow for the use of their characters, once unlocked, in other songs, except for the case of Jimi Hendrix in Guitar Hero World Tour, the only posthumous artist to appear in the series prior to Guitar Hero 5.

[80] Both Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic have made statements disapproving the inclusion of Cobain as an unlockable character in the game and have requested that he be locked to only Nirvana songs,[81] and Jon Bon Jovi, who had denied Activision's offer to include him in the game, supports their concerns about having his image be used to sing other artists' songs.

[19] In response to these statements, Activision claims it had secured all the proper publication rights for Cobain's image for the game.