Darkspore

[Roland]

Well, having put in about 2 days into the Beta and already maxed out my character (level 15, most characters in the low 30s) I can honestly say I won't be buying it. It's a fun-enough game - a decent Diablo clone - but nothing earth-shattering. The environments are attractive but repetitive, and short. The gameplay is repetitious (what do you expect from an action/adventure hack'n'slash?), the skills are extremely limited (3 per character, plus a basic attack and a passive), and there are only 25 characters to unlock to the best of my understanding - the remaining 75 (!) are just variations on earlier characters. The ability to combine three characters into a single squad and switch between each of the three on-the-fly is an interesting twist, but hardly innovative enough to be worth investing in the game. The core gameplay is actually a step back from Diablo, and the "story" if you can call it that is little more than can be found in most FPS games. The graphics are decent if mildly dated, the co-op multiplayer is about what you'd expect, and the big "feature" that I'm sure will take up the most attention on the box - the creature editor - is virtually meaningless within the context of the game. All your creatures look virtually identical to someone else's, and the most important attributes have nothing to do with what the creature part looks like - making the whole idea of unique customization moot when it all comes down to a RNG dice roll.

For $20 it's in decent competition with Torchlight. Given that it has MP, and the squad member switching, I'd go so far as to buy it at $25. $50 for this game, however, is an outrage and an insult. The game is far too repetitious with none of the glorious hooks Diablo gave us. The lack of completely randomized dungeons AND creatures is highly disappointing, the creature editor is a gimmick at best, and the fact that your squad members can be made either Godly or Useless depending on which enemies the computer stacks against you just makes the whole thing seem rather "meh." It's a decent time sink for a weekend, or perhaps a month, but beyond that I see no lasting appeal. They could have done so much more with the game, yet chose instead to focus on something that really ends up having almost no impact upon the game whatsoever. Shame. Glad I found out the easy way, though.

My handle at present is RolandDT81, in case anyone wants to join up for a night. After the Beta ends I'll be done with this game, and eagerly awaiting a modest-priced Torchlight II while I'm waiting for Diablo III and Elder Scrolls V (which comes out on my birthday, incidentally!)