For some reason, this is the one out of the series that was the best designed. It has the best balance, levels, and story.
This game basically assumes the player wants to play a souls-like game and so it doesn't really have an identity outside of the storyline. If you really love souls-likes and just want more, this might be fine, but its not interesting otherwise.
There are a lot of systems in this game that are ambitious in attempting to fix a lot of the tedium and mediocrity of older RPG systems. The combat is very flexible and fun. Yes you should play with a controller, but that is typical of action-heavy games. Adding more kb/mouse support would be nice, but I don't think it takes away from the experience. It's fast paced, dynamic, and feels great once you learn it. Navigating the world and choosing your adventure is gamified and is impacted by skills and items rather than being a running simulator. Gear heavily impacts play style. Varied enemy types heavily impact playstyle. Having competing protagonists adds a new layer of depth to the genre. The stat system is pretty boring and the abilities are a mixed bag in terms of fun-ness. So overall this is an innovative and fun game that, while could use some refining, is still a great addition to the landscape and very worth your time.
Quest states are not well-handled, there are a lot of things that can break or get skipped. Combat is very unforgiving. The dialog, writing, and plot are all ridiculous. Leveling up and finding loot is unsatisfying since character builds and loot requirements are so specific that the chance you will get anything usable is very low. I really wanted to like this game and it has its moments, but it is far more frustration than fun.
This game is very polished. It has some fun elements that made me overlook the weaknesses, but they came out as soon as I got on the campaign trail. The monster wave spawns are not fun to defend against. They aren't difficult, but you also have no idea what monsters are coming, so you just spend all your time making impenetrable defenses, which is easy, but tedious. Research tree is gargantuan, which serves to add more tedium and slow the game down more, especially since research times are so long (10-15 mins for the first couple tiers). The comparison to any sort of crafting game is spurious. It is much closer to StarCraft than to Factorio. But, you don't have any units to control, so you just run around moving your limited number of turrets based on which mine will be attacked first. As you spread out, it just becomes a chore. I really wanted to like this game, but it wasn't for me.
