Discalimer: though there are multiple difficulties, they essentially range from "hard" to "really hard." I expected one thing from this game going in and I got it in spades. First off its under 3GB, so if you're expecting something that couldnt fit in 3GB, why? My first playthough took me about 9 hours, I didnt die much but also had a tendency to respawn hordes that were fun to kill so that's probably a pretty typical time. The storyline is edgy nonsense, but you really dont need a reason to smash things in this game other than the catharsis you get from doing so. My first playthough on difficulty 2/4 took about 9 hours which I bet is typical. With all that out of the way though, I have to say, the combat system is fantastic. There are a lot more weapons I expected there would be, you'll start out with strong preferences but eventually apreciate that everything is balanced pretty well. The combat is really fluid and tight, but its easy to miss that its also very open-ended. about half way through I realized you can dodge forward WHILE charging up your power attack and thought "oh.. thats why I've been sucking so hard at using the hammer." Much to my surprize the game seems to essentially be balanced around stuff like that, which I think is grand. light weapons have cool parry attacks, heavy ones can slam enemies off ledges, and you can throw the heads of your dead enemies at your alive enemies. Killing stuff in this game is such a joy. You'll probably be back to slash again so just slap a few more 9 hour run throughs on there and you got yourself your money's worth
