Anyone else in this weekend's Darkspore closed beta? It doesn't have any NDA that I saw so we can chitty chat about it.

My overall thoughts are meh, though it is not my kind of game really. It is bright and colorful and fun to play, and the loot collecting seems well done and you get to actually build a character with loot, which is cool. Still at the end of the day it is 95% Diablo style hack n' slash with no real story or RPG depth.

I do like how powerful the characters feel, there is this "necro" template that starts with a freaking awesome ghost explosion power that decimates anything around you. Badass! Every character feels unique and powerful, which is good for a game like this, and you can switch them on the fly (though you can't upgrade them within a mission as far as I can tell).

The only other thing worth mentioning is that it seems to be built like an MMO, there is a permanent chat window and it tries getting you to play with others at every opportunity. Not sure if you have to be online to play it, gonna have to read the EULA carefully before purchasing.

I really liked this at PAX, are they going to launch with an activation requirement? Also, those Maxis devs are super cool.

EDIT: The idea behind the game is to create an action RPG where you feel free to swap characters at will (when all aliens level as one, even newly acquired ones, so you can try them right away). You hit each mission with a team of 3 aliens, you select one on the fly for play, the other two are in reserve but each provides a passive bonus to the active alien. On later levels it gets hard and the combo powers two players can use become very valuable. They also wanted to get away from the D2 formula of 8 people hopping in and going 8 different directions. They are at least trying (who knows how successfully) to make it hard to solo in multiplayer. They had over 20 aliens at PAX and claimed they would have more in the final game.

Well I've signed up for the beta myself now but wish I would have known about this sooner. Hopefully will get in as I love diablo 2 style "rpgs".

Orcishgamer what do you mean by 20 aliens? Like 20 architypes to choose from to start with or? I thought the idea was you could mold and create your own character just like spore?

Think of them like character class archetypes, so yeah, but you collect new ones along the way and each mission you set up a "team" to play with.