Heroes of a Broken Land (Dungeon Crawler / world builder)
Despite a few flaws, I really loved this game for most of the 50 hours it took to beat a "small" map the first time. Ok, so there are some cons:
1) graphics are poor, and yet kinda grew on me
2) inventory management is a bit of a pain in the ass, esp. later in the game
3) ui isn't as helpful as it could be at times to a new player
4) enemy types are somewhat limited, but just enough variance to keep it somewhat interesting
But the game's core mechanics are very well conceived and executed. You don't just manage one question party - by the end you'll need at least 3 to beat a small map given the number of multi-party towers you have to get through, and the game executes these very well.
I was about 5 hours into the small map, cleared the first island of the 2-3 short, low level dungeons, and thought that was game over. But literally it was another 45 hours. Now, that said, I overleveled the final dungeon with 2 of my 3 parties b/c I wasn't entirely sure which dungeon of the many sprouting up was the one I needed, so it probably could have shaved 10 or so hours off.
But even on a small map this game will take some exploring and some serious dungeon crawling, with a good mix of traps, portals, and altars that can permanently buff or hamper your parties.
The classes (with a few exceptions) I particularly enjoyed, esp. as the game encourages you to change classes from the initial starting 4 (mage, rogue, warrior, priest) to a total of 12 or so, including two non-human races that you can rescue or recruit for gooooold. Some party combos definitely work better than others (dual priest, dual wizard, warrior variety + rogue variety is pretty killer once you get the mana regen talent for your casters).
A few classes don't seem to work quite as well - the sorceror (mix of caster/melee you can reclass from mage) was panned so badly online I didn't care to try it, despite having many volunteer to be on my team. And why bother when the wizard (also mage reclass) is versatile and dominant. The faery was a bit like gambling, since her attack randomly flows through all the elements plus darkness (and light?), so at times is resisted, at times is devastating, and now and then actually heals the enemies you're fighting. Oops! But it kept things interesting.
The assassin also seems poorly conceived, as its attack is based on "dark" damage- yet only 3 enemies are esp. vulnerable to it, whereas about 10-15 types are straight up immune, and 1 gets healed by it. And it seems to be your only meaningful source of damage. I ran with one in my third party, mostly just because I didn't want to grind up another rogue and you can't really run without one because of the sea of traps in most dungeons - you could probably heal/resist through most of the damage, but the ones that drain mana would suxors.
I was looking forward to this game based on a few reviews, and it still outstripped my expectations by a wide margin.
That said, you probably won't like this if you:
a) don't really like dungeon crawling, b/c you'll be doing a lot of it
b) don't mind that it's pretty slim on puzzles beyond navigating, finding door switches, and defeating traps
c) really want your dungeon crawling to have a story. There's barely even the shell of a story.
But one other mechanic that makes this interesting is the initiative system. Approach an enemy from behind and you get two turns of attacks on them (and vice versa if something comes up on you); approach from the side and you get to attack first in the round regardless of speed (and vice versa); approach face to face and it's based on each character/mobs' speed.
So the game really does a good job keeping you peeking around corners. Just walking straight ahead all the time without watching where you are going will up the degree of combat quite a bit. Big thumbs up from me.
