I would give it 3.5 stars, however that isn't an option, so I'll go with four, simply to round up.
The only other dungeon crawler I ever played was Stonekeep, and the game locked up on me in the ice caves, so I was never able to finish it. This is very much reminiscent of that game, except I didn't have a group, just one character.
The gameplay is what I expected, the graphics are good, the ambiance and sounds are creepy enough to give me the chills when its quiet in the house.
There are only a couple of small issues. As a few others have mentioned, my system seems to bog down. I've got a six month old laptop with a 1GB NGF GT820M graphics card. It isn't a "top of the line" gaming system by any means, however I can play my MMORPGs on high graphics without so much as a hiccup, but I have trouble with some of the timed puzzles because of the "laggy" effects I get. I have the graphics set on LOW... this should NOT even be an issue. Another review said something about the developers needing to do more to "optimize" gameplay. I have to agree with him on this.
Some of the areas seem to just be overwhelming when you first enter them. Level 6, for example. It took me five or six tries to live through the three spiders and an ogre encounter successfully. Thank goodness I am an old school gamer that remembers to save before opening any new area or door. (Thank goodness for unlimited saves!)
Some of the monsters seem overpowered, like the crabs... I have two tanks in heavy armor that can't take more than three hits? Really?? I would expect my mage to be crushed... but my warriors really should be able to take a bit more of a beating than that. So perhaps some more thought needs to go into class balance.
There might also be a limit to what you can spec into, or at least some info on how to use those points wisely. I hadn't a clue that I wouldn't be able to go into three major schools of magic. And it would be VERY nice to be able to hotkey a spell or two, rune-clicking can be a pain in the arse... ugh. Next time I will simply use two rogues.. one who throws knives, and one who gets the bows.
All in all its a great game, well worth the $13 I spent on it. I've already gotten my money's worth, and I'm only on level 7.
Good job to the devs. I hope we get more soon!
