mystral: It's closer to Diablo or Titan Quest than Dungeon Siege, since you don't have a party.

Avencast is a hack&slash game where you're forced to play a mage, though you have two types of magic you can specialize in, a close combat one (which actually plays like a squishy warrior in robes), or the standard glass cannon.

Personally, I played the nuke'em type and the game was rather hard.
From what I've heard, the close combat magic makes the game much easier to play.

It's a decent game if you like that particular genre and you don't mind playing a guy in robes.