It was the only way for me to go because of my low high school GPA. It gave me some time to buckle down and practice a bit for real university. In Colorado, most of the 4-years have agreements with community colleges to take all the credits if you follow a certain degree program, and some of them don't even factor your community college GPA in to the 4-year transcript.
In short, yes, it is a pretty good way to go. Unless you get accepted to a good (Ivy League) university, I would reccomend a community college first.