The gameplay in Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is based on the same gameplay elements from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.[5] Players use a guitar controller to hold down fret keys and strum on the strum bar in time with the note patterns as they scroll down the screen in order to complete a song. The player's performance is tracked by a Rock Meter, and if it falls too low, the song ends prematurely. 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 player is rated after successfully completing a song from 3 to 5 stars, and can examine statistics related to their performance, and in Career mode, awarded money to be used to unlock ten bonus songs in "The Vault" and additional guitars, outfits, and other videos about the band. Each song can be played at one of four difficulties: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert.
The game offers several gameplay modes. Career mode is broken into six tiers of five tracks, each based on a period in Aerosmith's history. Furthermore, within each tier, there are two Opening Acts, featuring non-Aerosmith songs, that must be completed before the Aerosmith songs can be played; the final song in each tier is an encore once the other four songs are completed. As the player completes this mode, they will also be presented with video clips talking about the band and other trivia about the band. The Career mode features one Boss Battle (against Joe Perry) as introduced in Guitar Hero III.[5] Any unlocked song can be played in Quick Play mode, Co-operative mode, with one player on lead guitar and the other on bass, and Competitive mode, including the Battle modes. Unlike Guitar Hero III, there is no Co-Operative Career mode. One significant upgrade from Guitar Hero III is the addition of score balancing in Pro Face Off multiplayer mode, which allows each player to choose their own difficulty while still allowing each side to play the full note chart, instead of switching back and forth within regular Face Off. This is the first Guitar Hero game compatible with Rock Band controllers.