Professional videogame reviewers are useless.

I'm guessing that this is ultimately a multiplayer "kill their base before they kill yours + Level up" MOBA ala. Defense of the Ancients or Awesomenauts. I'm also guessing all the campaign missions are just a series of tutorials for said MOBA battles fought against bots.

Am I right? Am I missing something? Is this really worth it for singleplayer only?

The single player campaign is story driven and should last the average player about 20 hours. While it will definitely get you ready for multiplayer, it is not just a tutorial for it. In fact, you never play any mission that is a direct copy of a multiplayer mission in the single player campaign.

Every ship and piece of equipment you unlock in single player can be used in multi, and vice versa.

I should add that there are plenty of coop multiplayer modes, ranging from base battles to a zombie survival mode.

The MOBA mode is currently in the works.

I'm also trying to figure this game out. The YouTube trailer doesn't want to play (hasn't been the same since Google assimilated it...) so all I have to go on are the screenshots, none of which give me a clear picture of just what this game is.

Is it like Freelancer (free-ranging space flight)?
Is it like Tachyon: The Fringe (mission-constrained space flight)?

Or is it, as the one screenshot suggests, like Geometry Wars/Asteroid?

Is the entire story mode, such as it may be, co-op?

The story driven campaign is mission based, the first portion is linear as it teaches you the ropes. Later, shortly after you acquire an Anchor Drive, you are free to explore the universe in a non linear fashion.

The story driven campaign can be played in local coop (by choosing to pilot a Duo ship), once you leave the intro galaxy.

Oh, and the screenshot that looks like Geometry Wars is one of many mini games found throughout the single player campaign.

Thanks was wondering when/how to start playing coop with my daughter!

Difficult to answer. However I'll give my thoughts on it.

I fell in love with this game within 5 minutes of watching the video about it, and playing it. The reason why is I actually fell in love with a unrelated predecessor [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation:_Inner_Space]Operation InnerSpace[/url]. The reason I fell in love with inner space is first it was free (the demo is effectively the full game) and includes: dog-fights, upgrades, quirky and funny AI, good plot, racing, etc. I literally played the game for dozens of hours.

RingRunner encompasses all of that's listed (this except you aren't being shrunk into your computer and capturing icons, or using dated sprite graphics intended for Windows 3.1) while running on newer hardware, better graphics, sounds, more options for weapons, etc. (But I'll miss flying as a dolphin, and whistling when I get hit)

It's easy to fall in love with this game because controls-wise it feels the same as InnerSpace; Truthfully I haven't played it nearly as long as I would have liked since trying to swap how I did the controls (arrows and space, ctrl + alt, etc) and vs more recent playing controller based controls (WASD, QE, ZXC, mouse, etc) confuses me mentally. The Dev's support of gamepads (Non-Xbox) is a little less than I'd like.

The actual game feels like every mission and section is a breath of fresh air, you aren't in the WarCraft/Starcraft mindset of 'kill everything to continue', rather there are a number of missions that are completely different, be it racing, stealth, throwing garbage to get Plex for your ship, it all has a smooth and fun transition. Plus a number of optional goals is rather funny. (Why won't you die, strong with the Peanutbutter Cup, etc).

As of this writing the game also includes SDL (Space Defense League) which I think is included with the demo you can play the game free on Multi-player for DOTA-like gameplay. See dev page

In the end, if this type of space-shooter isn't your thing, pass it up, however if you enjoy this style of gameplay, I'll recommend it. I hope they add a lot more in the next few years. Since GoG games are DRM-less, install on two computers and hook-up via network!

I haven't actually done this yet, but I hope to once I find someone who wants to play.

edit: Glancing at other topics the LAN may not work, but it uses it's own servers. Interesting, oh well..

edit 2: Something to comment on which I see after getting into the game a bit, there's a few Duo ships. These are ships that require two pilots. One generally controls the ship and the other the guns (at least by description) but I get the impression both pilots can use guns, however one won't be able to pilot for obvious reasons.