After listening to it, I think up until What I've Done was really solid and then it drops off. I think the "political statement" songs drag the album down, not because of my own beliefs but because of the fact come 20 years from now they won't hold up. Only a few bands can get away with being political in their songs (Rage, U2, Bad Religion), here my reaction was "Awww Linkin Park's gone political, how cute", while I was thinking "Awww how retarded". In the long run, I don't see a lot of people embracing the album like the first two (it will sell well initially because of the brand, but in about 6-8 months it will be readily available in the used bin).
Edit: The Special edition is a rip-off, which I bought because I thought it had a cool ringtone maker program that I could use to work on some other tones as well as the "What I've Done" tone. What they don't tell you is that you have to buy the tone you create. The making of was interesting but all the other features weren't impressive.