I have been wearing Vibrams Fivefingers for the last year and a half.  One of my pairs finally bit the dust so in all fairness I decided to check out the competition to see whether I had been missing anything. Judging by these shoes, I have not.  They have far too much junk underfoot for "barefoot" trainers.  I feel like I want to just open them up and tear out whatever is underfoot in there.  And the look is not just the crazy look of Vibrams but weird crazy - I think they were just trying to avoid a Vibrams lawsuit with differentiating the five toes so you wind up with this weird goat foot look with the last two toes together. If you don't look closely and can't tell the last two aren't independent it's okay - at least they made it look like they differentiated them with the lines in the design. They were inexpensive, which was a plus, but the neoprene material is hot and doesn't breathe well.  My stars are for the price, the cool look overall (awesome skeleton print on the bottom) and because as a whole-foot shoe, they would adequately keep out rocks and debris if running outside in nature or hiking.  I think these might be a good transition if trying to go from normal shoes to more barefoot styles until you can transition to even less stuff underfoot.  Overall, though, I am not impressed - Vibrams run laps around these.  Much cooler, lighter, more comfortable laps.