I've played the demo and I have no idea what to think about it. I never played any of the KUF games, my understanding that it was more of Strategy + Hack-n-Slash type game. This one felt more like N3... solo vs world. Eh, it was kind of fun... once I used the Vampire looking guy.

I liked the demo, I really can't put my finger on why though. I'm usually not a fan of hack & slash games; but maybe my brain was fooled by the graphics. I'm seriously debating whether or not to pick it up.

Does anyone know if this supports local MP? My wife is a fan of dungeon hack type games, and this seems to be one of the few coming out for the 360. Too Human, if it is any good, could also fill that void. I'm pretty sure that Too Human won't support local MP, so I may just have to get a 2nd 360.

If this cost $5, and I knew I would have a standing date to play with some GWJers, I would buy it. But, that's about it.

I enjoyed the hack n' slash in a very "I am not thinking right now" way, and I imagine that it could be pretty fun with 3 other people ALSO hack n' slashing.

I think it fills a niche. For me it takes Diablo's place as the game to play if you just want to shut off your brain and chill out.

I apologize in advance for the wall of text..

I just got Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom the other day, and I wanted to put in my two cents since I haven't been seeing a lot of people talk about it.

In short, to summarize in case you are a "tl;dr" reader, I think KUF CoD is a great game, but you shouldn't expect anything more than what it is: a fun hack-and-slash with 4 player online co-op, over the top weapon abilities and a pretty broad spectrum of unique weapons for each character. The combat reminds me more of a more melee-oriented Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, or Champions of Norath, than DMC or another beat-em-up, I'd also say co-op reminds me of Dungeon Siege for some reason even though it's a totally different style of gameplay. I'm happy paying full price, and as a used game it would be sweet. The game takes enough time to go through that it wouldn't make a great rental, but it would be a good rental if you don't want to really try and max out your characters (or if you just want to go online and sail through the campaign with more powerful players helping you.) If you enjoyed BG: DA or Champions of Norath, this game is probably going to be a treat for you.

The entire campaign can be completed in online co-op mode, and can be done in chunks. It's often quicker and easier to finish some quests by exiting a lobby and finding another lobby which is in an area closer to where you need to quest in, and this means you meet a bunch of people too. If you don't have XBL, the game is pretty shallow and could get boring quickly, however.

As an aside, there are a bunch of goofy custome addons you can do, baseball caps and sunglasses, and the DLC pack has really zany stuff like pumpkin and panda heads, cleaver-through-the-skull hats, horns, skulls, etc.. Pretty off the wall stuff.

In Long:
The XBL demo is okay, but not indicative of how fun the game can be overall., or how much upgradability/customization you can do with your characters overall. While there are already people exploiting a "dupe" bug to get weapons and armor with outrageous stats, most people aren't duping, and most of the people you meet in co-op are pretty cool overall.

There aren't a ton of characters, and there is only one unlockable character (Curian, unlocked by finishing the Celine the elf-chick-who-uses-bows-and-rapiers quest), but all the characters are pretty varied, and most of them are cool in their own way.

The demo makes it feel like a lot more one-dimensional than it is, since the weapons actually behave differently when they're in one hand, than in the other, and the ranged weapons are easy to use and efefctive. There are tons of cool upgrades and abilities, and once you find a Long Bow of Piercing+Guidance+Reflection (pierces multiple enemies, seeks out others, and reflects off walls), it gets pretty wild too!

The weapon procs can be upgraded up to level 25 by synthesizing other items with similar procs. This generally means, for instance, taking your Attack 25 sword of Frost (2% proc,) and synthing a lower level trash weapon with the same proc, to raise your proc rate but conversely lower your weapons other stats. Then you must find another weapon with HIGHER stats (or certain potions work as well) to synth to the combined weapon to raise its power back up again. It's fun and easy, but complex enough that you can really get into it.. And having a Shuriken of Multi-shot lv.20 is REALLY cool, let me tell you! Some of the weapon and armor abilities are also co-op oriented, with items that heal your party when nearby, or which raise your own attack powers when you're near other players.

You can easily get a character to max level within a week, if you want to cheese your way through, but max level is not necessary and smart gameplay can allow a low level character to survive and succeed even with a party of people MUCH higher level than yourself.

Farming is not too difficult, you make money quickly and easily, combat is pretty simple overall, and you can also get cash and gear the "cheap" way, by finding a co-op game online, wihch is on one of the later levels, then follow around the level 120 übercharacters and picking up their scraps to either sell or store for yourself.. Last night I got a +105 hps piece of armor doing this with my level 1 character, and I was able to bolster my stats enough to wear the item at level 3, effectively tripling my hps and negating to need to even bother putting skill points into health at all!

...In closing, I'll be playing this game for a while and enjoying the hell out of it! It's both a good mindless hack-em-up AND a pretty fun online co-op. I'd say it's a fun, solid game without pretensions of being anything but what it is, and if you aren't going to pick it apart for not being "more of this" and "more of that", it's a heck of a good time!