As a background, I'm big on exploration and atmosphere, which is what drew me to Arx. The introductory bit involving the escape from the goblin dungeon is well-crafted. And really, the interface, environment, and general design aesthetic of the game are marvelous. Subterranean adventure awaits, and all that jazz. The inventory, spell system, and log system all have a great amount of polish. However, when it comes down to actually engaging in combat, things get clunky really quickly. Jumping is little more then teleporting you 3 feet into the air to fall down, and there seems to be some oddness in model synchronization.
The environment puts so much work into building up the atmosphere, and the more-hack-then-slash nature of the combat undermines much of that. If you can look past the quirks in the most vital parts of the gameplay, then I'd highly recommend this. Otherwise, look elsewhere for your first-person-roleplaying.