The game mechanics themselves were well designed, but I think a major problem for those of us who are not experienced in skateboarding is that it's very hard to know what the moves are.
When I looked up the controls in the game, I actually didn't know what an ollie or a grind is so I was just as confused as before. And I had no idea what combination of keys would produce a trick so I was just mashing buttons for most of it. Didn't know how to do a balancing move on the rails at all.
When I was fortunate enough to execute a trick it ran pretty smoothly, but I think there really should have been a tutorial explaining the skateboard terms.