[8] Also included as a bonus track and featuring a music video is Sambora's single "Every Road Leads Home to You" from his solo album Aftermath of the Lowdown.

The cover artwork features the four members of the band painted behind a collage which features a soldier with a guitar and walking up a mountain against a yellow and blue American flag background, two hands wrapped in bandages, a headshot of a woman, some roses, and the band's heart and dagger symbol.

[10] While Caroline Sullivan from The Guardian states that "the band have reached out with the sort of empowering platitudes and riffage that will give fans on this summer's stadium tour something to punch the air about",[13] Stephen Unwin from the Daily Express was less favorable, claiming that the album "is the closest thing to predictable from the poster boys of American rock ’n’ roll, which for their most myopic fans is the closest thing to wonderful.

[14] James Manning, from Time Out, believes that the band "won't win any new fans with their twelfth album [...] but they're unlikely to lose many either.

"[15] Ian Gittins, from Virgin Media, thought "the band's perennial propensity for clichés and Hollywood blockbuster-style happy endings invariably make it difficult to take Bon Jovi as seriously as they crave",[2] though he later admits that "there are some good tunes.

"[2] For Stephen Erlewine, from Allmusic, "there aren't so many big hooks on What About Now -- just the raise-your-fist anthem of 'Because We Can,' with most of the sweetest melodies coming from the softer, quieter moments, such as the acoustic 'The Fighter' and the Christian ballad 'Room at the End of the World'.