I remember going there in 2001 when first coming to AZ and I was really impressed with it. But the decay started not long after that and then you'd here stories of the local gang activity there all the time and the recession accelerated it.
When I was growing up over in Scottsdale in the late 70s/early 80s, Metrocenter was
the hub. Biggest mall in the Valley, had an ice skating rink (later to be featured so prominently in
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure), a Carousel Ice Cream, etc. Castles and Coasters was originally Golf 'n' Stuff, and I'd go out every weekend to drive on their go kart track. Then Paradise Valley Mall opened, and that started siphoning off a lot of the East Valley consumer/hangout traffic.
It's really sad for me to see what Metrocenter is now, and how far gone it is even in the past 10 years when I used to take my kids there for holiday piano recitals. It's especially sad considering how much the West Side has improved the farther west you go from Metrocenter. It's an ironic reversal of what it used to be when I was younger - used to be that Metrocenter was the last vestige of civilization before you got into the really bad areas, but now Glendale and especially Peoria have turned things around.