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This thread has been linked to the game 'Too Human'.
9.5/10
There you go, score first, and it's a highly subjective score. The reason for it is I've played the game for around 150 hours and any game that can keep me entranced for that period of time is almost perfect, the rest of this review will tell you what's so great about Too Human and why it just falls short of a 10.
Too Human is an action/RPG, with a very heavy emphasis on RPG elements and not so much on the action. What makes it totally unique to any other loot-fest on the 360 is that most of the combat is controlled with the analogue sticks rather than the usual button mashing.
The storyline sees you play as the Aesir god Baldur, he from Norse myth, charged with the protection of mankind along with the other Aesir gods. When a mechanical monster attacks a local pub and starts downing the blood of the locals Baldur goes off to investigate, the the storyline will lead you through the Hall of Heroes, the Ice Forest, World Serpent, Helheim with some side trips to cyberspace and the main Aesir town on the way to restock on weapons, armor, runes and charms.
Devotees of Norse myth should enjoy the storyline, all the main characters like Loki, Thor, Hel, Odin, the Norns, Freya, Heimdall are there, even Garm makes a special appearance, and the way Silicon Knights have reimagined the world as a civilisation knee-deep in nanotechnolgy and cybernetic enhancements is very original and allows them to take a few liberties with the original storylines as told by the verses.
The combat can take a while to get used to, learning to 'let go' and put your faith in an automatic camera is probably the hardest thing to overcome, but once you let those pre-programmed right-thumb motor skills relax, and discover that the camera is always pointing in the direction of the biggest threat, you're good to go.
Your right stick has about 5 different skills linked to it:
Point it in the direction of an enemy, and if you're close enough you'll slide in and start attacking.
Swirl it around when surrounded and you'll knock enemies flying and free up some much needed space.
Press it in conjunction with the left stick to pull off a devastating finisher attack at close range or a lethal weapon-specific fierce attack from long range.
Double tap it to knock enemies up into the air, then keep them juggled there with guns blazing or jump up and continue to attack them, or pull off a mid-air combo by applying a finisher move.
That's the combat in a nutshell, but it does get much deeper. Every action you perform goes towards your combo meter. The higher your combo is, the faster you move, the more damage you do, the more special abilities you'll have at your disposal like massive AoE class-specific Ruiners which can take out a whole screenful of mobs, spider turrets that can wash waves of enemies with plasma, heal you, shield you, drop bombs (depends on your class and which skill tree branch you took), various battlecries which enhance your combat and Sentient Weapon skills which send your weapon off on its own to hunt down beasties.
Get the hang of all of this and you'll find yourself flying around the screen at 100mph slashing mechanical goblins into oblivion and obliterating the undead enmasse. Fail to get the hang of things, and you will start to hate the 15 second unskippable cutscene where a Valkyrie comes down, picks your dead body up and replaces you back in the game. Aside from this, the loss of combo meter and a hit to your armor durability (which you can repair back in town), that's the only death penalty.
Fortunately, when you're level 50 you'll actually look forward to dying now and again because you've started to forget what a Valkyrie looks like, although your repair bills will cost you around half a million Bounty by that stage.
On the minus side, if you're still cutting your teeth with the combat the loss of a combo is very devastating, especially if you're up against an elite troll who will happily kill you a few times until you figure out how to tackle it properly.
On the RPG side of things, it's a pure lootfest and statfest, and there are oodles of both to play around with.
Loot follows the usual DiabloII/WoW rarity formula, it'll drop as white, green, blue, purple, orange or red depending on how good it is. There are armor sets to collect which provide additional bonuses, different weapon types to play around with, charms and runes to level up, a level 50 cap to reach and a full level 50 class specific elite set to collect.
The stat side of things is deceptively deep. Choose one of 5 classes:
Commando: Specialises in ranged ballistics and explosives (ranger type)
Bioengineer: Specialises in healing/regen abilities (healer type)
Berserker: Specialises in damage/dual wield (dps type)
Defender: Specialises in defence/shields (tank type)
Champion: Jack of all trades (combination of the above types, minus healing)
Choose an alignment, Human or Cybernetic, this will give you an extra skill tree on top of your class skill tree. Humans have their own special Ruiner abilities, whereas Cybernetics are more damage focused and have to use ruiners that come preset on their weapons.
After that you need to decide how to assign your 95 possible skillpoints as you go. You can't max out everything so have to be selective, which adds more diversity to your character.
On top of this, you can customise your character further by socketing runes into armour and weapons, and there are 100 different types of runes affecting everything from ballistic range, individual weapon damage, defense, health, chance of a proc activating and so on.
You can also equip charms which range from basic level 1 charms that grant small bonuses to epic level 3 charms that can wipe out a whole zone of enemies. Each charm has an associated quest to unlock (find 10 blueprints is a typical level 1 charm quest, kill 12,000 enemies in the air is a rather nasty level 3 charm quest, but fortunately worth it), and each charm will require either runes to be added or, in the case of the higher level charms, completed lower level charms to be socketed.
The depth here is that you can have 32 available socket spots at any one time, plus 2 charms equipped, so the options available to you for customisation are mindboggling.
You can basically run through the storyline and 'finish' the game in around 12 hours. The replayability comes from the fact that you'll then be around level 31 and wanting some new gear. The choice is to either replay the campaign, or jump into individual levels again via the menu system which allows you to replay campaign levels or variations thereof solo, or you can jump into 2-player co-op online (no system link or co-op offline).
The gear itself is particularly noteworthy, there is a huge variety of different equipment to play around with, and in closeup (click the Right Stick when standing still to spin the camera around from head to toe for a better look) you can see the amazing amount of detail the designers have added - little nicks and scratches on breastplates, runes inscribed in the inside of shoulder pieces, swords that have a life of their own - and all of these are visible when the game goes into cutscenes to either provide flashbacks or plotlines to keep you up to date with where you should be going next.
The main reason it didn't get the full 10/10 is the 'polish', in some places you jump in the air and land on top of a zombie and can't move back down to the ground until he moves or you shoot him from above, in other places (and fortunately this only happened once to me) you'll fall through the map into nothingness and have to 'Return to Aesir'/'Return to Mission' to play that bit over, very occasionally you'll hear a random sound effect during the start or end of a cutscene. For some these are gamebreakers, for me they just affect the immersion a little, hence the final score.
Overall it's a real timesink, definitely the best and most comprehensive loot-fest on the 360, the closest thing to it is probably either Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on the old PS2 or Diablo II on the PC. I picked it up for £29.99 at release and basically got 5 hours entertainment out of it for every £1 spent, and I'm still itching to go back and level up my other classes (you get 6 character slots).
Can't wait for the two sequels (the storyline is spread out over a trilogy). Fortunately the first installment manages to wrap up most of the storyline threads admirably, then hits you right at the end with the shape of things to come. If you do take my advice and buy it, read the manual and hunt around Aesir for gameplay tips thoroughly, you'll get more out of the game once you work out how to play effectively.
There you go, score first, and it's a highly subjective score. The reason for it is I've played the game for around 150 hours and any game that can keep me entranced for that period of time is almost perfect, the rest of this review will tell you what's so great about Too Human and why it just falls short of a 10.
Too Human is an action/RPG, with a very heavy emphasis on RPG elements and not so much on the action. What makes it totally unique to any other loot-fest on the 360 is that most of the combat is controlled with the analogue sticks rather than the usual button mashing.
The storyline sees you play as the Aesir god Baldur, he from Norse myth, charged with the protection of mankind along with the other Aesir gods. When a mechanical monster attacks a local pub and starts downing the blood of the locals Baldur goes off to investigate, the the storyline will lead you through the Hall of Heroes, the Ice Forest, World Serpent, Helheim with some side trips to cyberspace and the main Aesir town on the way to restock on weapons, armor, runes and charms.
Devotees of Norse myth should enjoy the storyline, all the main characters like Loki, Thor, Hel, Odin, the Norns, Freya, Heimdall are there, even Garm makes a special appearance, and the way Silicon Knights have reimagined the world as a civilisation knee-deep in nanotechnolgy and cybernetic enhancements is very original and allows them to take a few liberties with the original storylines as told by the verses.
The combat can take a while to get used to, learning to 'let go' and put your faith in an automatic camera is probably the hardest thing to overcome, but once you let those pre-programmed right-thumb motor skills relax, and discover that the camera is always pointing in the direction of the biggest threat, you're good to go.
Your right stick has about 5 different skills linked to it:
Point it in the direction of an enemy, and if you're close enough you'll slide in and start attacking.
Swirl it around when surrounded and you'll knock enemies flying and free up some much needed space.
Press it in conjunction with the left stick to pull off a devastating finisher attack at close range or a lethal weapon-specific fierce attack from long range.
Double tap it to knock enemies up into the air, then keep them juggled there with guns blazing or jump up and continue to attack them, or pull off a mid-air combo by applying a finisher move.
That's the combat in a nutshell, but it does get much deeper. Every action you perform goes towards your combo meter. The higher your combo is, the faster you move, the more damage you do, the more special abilities you'll have at your disposal like massive AoE class-specific Ruiners which can take out a whole screenful of mobs, spider turrets that can wash waves of enemies with plasma, heal you, shield you, drop bombs (depends on your class and which skill tree branch you took), various battlecries which enhance your combat and Sentient Weapon skills which send your weapon off on its own to hunt down beasties.
Get the hang of all of this and you'll find yourself flying around the screen at 100mph slashing mechanical goblins into oblivion and obliterating the undead enmasse. Fail to get the hang of things, and you will start to hate the 15 second unskippable cutscene where a Valkyrie comes down, picks your dead body up and replaces you back in the game. Aside from this, the loss of combo meter and a hit to your armor durability (which you can repair back in town), that's the only death penalty.
Fortunately, when you're level 50 you'll actually look forward to dying now and again because you've started to forget what a Valkyrie looks like, although your repair bills will cost you around half a million Bounty by that stage.
On the minus side, if you're still cutting your teeth with the combat the loss of a combo is very devastating, especially if you're up against an elite troll who will happily kill you a few times until you figure out how to tackle it properly.
On the RPG side of things, it's a pure lootfest and statfest, and there are oodles of both to play around with.
Loot follows the usual DiabloII/WoW rarity formula, it'll drop as white, green, blue, purple, orange or red depending on how good it is. There are armor sets to collect which provide additional bonuses, different weapon types to play around with, charms and runes to level up, a level 50 cap to reach and a full level 50 class specific elite set to collect.
The stat side of things is deceptively deep. Choose one of 5 classes:
Commando: Specialises in ranged ballistics and explosives (ranger type)
Bioengineer: Specialises in healing/regen abilities (healer type)
Berserker: Specialises in damage/dual wield (dps type)
Defender: Specialises in defence/shields (tank type)
Champion: Jack of all trades (combination of the above types, minus healing)
Choose an alignment, Human or Cybernetic, this will give you an extra skill tree on top of your class skill tree. Humans have their own special Ruiner abilities, whereas Cybernetics are more damage focused and have to use ruiners that come preset on their weapons.
After that you need to decide how to assign your 95 possible skillpoints as you go. You can't max out everything so have to be selective, which adds more diversity to your character.
On top of this, you can customise your character further by socketing runes into armour and weapons, and there are 100 different types of runes affecting everything from ballistic range, individual weapon damage, defense, health, chance of a proc activating and so on.
You can also equip charms which range from basic level 1 charms that grant small bonuses to epic level 3 charms that can wipe out a whole zone of enemies. Each charm has an associated quest to unlock (find 10 blueprints is a typical level 1 charm quest, kill 12,000 enemies in the air is a rather nasty level 3 charm quest, but fortunately worth it), and each charm will require either runes to be added or, in the case of the higher level charms, completed lower level charms to be socketed.
The depth here is that you can have 32 available socket spots at any one time, plus 2 charms equipped, so the options available to you for customisation are mindboggling.
You can basically run through the storyline and 'finish' the game in around 12 hours. The replayability comes from the fact that you'll then be around level 31 and wanting some new gear. The choice is to either replay the campaign, or jump into individual levels again via the menu system which allows you to replay campaign levels or variations thereof solo, or you can jump into 2-player co-op online (no system link or co-op offline).
The gear itself is particularly noteworthy, there is a huge variety of different equipment to play around with, and in closeup (click the Right Stick when standing still to spin the camera around from head to toe for a better look) you can see the amazing amount of detail the designers have added - little nicks and scratches on breastplates, runes inscribed in the inside of shoulder pieces, swords that have a life of their own - and all of these are visible when the game goes into cutscenes to either provide flashbacks or plotlines to keep you up to date with where you should be going next.
The main reason it didn't get the full 10/10 is the 'polish', in some places you jump in the air and land on top of a zombie and can't move back down to the ground until he moves or you shoot him from above, in other places (and fortunately this only happened once to me) you'll fall through the map into nothingness and have to 'Return to Aesir'/'Return to Mission' to play that bit over, very occasionally you'll hear a random sound effect during the start or end of a cutscene. For some these are gamebreakers, for me they just affect the immersion a little, hence the final score.
Overall it's a real timesink, definitely the best and most comprehensive loot-fest on the 360, the closest thing to it is probably either Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on the old PS2 or Diablo II on the PC. I picked it up for £29.99 at release and basically got 5 hours entertainment out of it for every £1 spent, and I'm still itching to go back and level up my other classes (you get 6 character slots).
Can't wait for the two sequels (the storyline is spread out over a trilogy). Fortunately the first installment manages to wrap up most of the storyline threads admirably, then hits you right at the end with the shape of things to come. If you do take my advice and buy it, read the manual and hunt around Aesir for gameplay tips thoroughly, you'll get more out of the game once you work out how to play effectively.
Here's a short video of a Commando (mainly gun-based) in Too Human. Hopefully it'll demonstrate that the combat is nothing like DMC.
Too Human - Commando
The video was made using the demo which is currently up on XBox Live, so it's pretty basic pre-level 10 combat.
In a style contrast, this is the Berserker (mainly melee-based) in action, again using demo footage.
Too Human - Berserker
And this is 2 player co-op at level 50, using the full game (and slightly more enemies):
Too Human - Level 50 Gameplay
Too Human - Commando
The video was made using the demo which is currently up on XBox Live, so it's pretty basic pre-level 10 combat.
In a style contrast, this is the Berserker (mainly melee-based) in action, again using demo footage.
Too Human - Berserker
And this is 2 player co-op at level 50, using the full game (and slightly more enemies):
Too Human - Level 50 Gameplay
I really want this game, but I've heard it copies a lot of it's ideas from other games. The combat, for example, looks very similar to DMC games, especially the holding of enemies in the air with your guns.
9.5/10
There you go, score first, and it's a highly subjective score. The reason for it is I've played the game for around 150 hours and any game that can keep me entranced for that period of time is almost perfect, the rest of this review will tell you what's so great about Too Human and why it just falls short of a 10.
Too Human is an action/RPG, with a very heavy emphasis on RPG elements and not so much on the action. What makes it totally unique to any other loot-fest on the 360 is that most of the combat is controlled with the analogue sticks rather than the usual button mashing.
The storyline sees you play as the Aesir god Baldur, he from Norse myth, charged with the protection of mankind along with the other Aesir gods. When a mechanical monster attacks a local pub and starts downing the blood of the locals Baldur goes off to investigate, the the storyline will lead you through the Hall of Heroes, the Ice Forest, World Serpent, Helheim with some side trips to cyberspace and the main Aesir town on the way to restock on weapons, armor, runes and charms.
Devotees of Norse myth should enjoy the storyline, all the main characters like Loki, Thor, Hel, Odin, the Norns, Freya, Heimdall are there, even Garm makes a special appearance, and the way Silicon Knights have reimagined the world as a civilisation knee-deep in nanotechnolgy and cybernetic enhancements is very original and allows them to take a few liberties with the original storylines as told by the verses.
The combat can take a while to get used to, learning to 'let go' and put your faith in an automatic camera is probably the hardest thing to overcome, but once you let those pre-programmed right-thumb motor skills relax, and discover that the camera is always pointing in the direction of the biggest threat, you're good to go.
Your right stick has about 5 different skills linked to it:
Point it in the direction of an enemy, and if you're close enough you'll slide in and start attacking.
Swirl it around when surrounded and you'll knock enemies flying and free up some much needed space.
Press it in conjunction with the left stick to pull off a devastating finisher attack at close range or a lethal weapon-specific fierce attack from long range.
Double tap it to knock enemies up into the air, then keep them juggled there with guns blazing or jump up and continue to attack them, or pull off a mid-air combo by applying a finisher move.
That's the combat in a nutshell, but it does get much deeper. Every action you perform goes towards your combo meter. The higher your combo is, the faster you move, the more damage you do, the more special abilities you'll have at your disposal like massive AoE class-specific Ruiners which can take out a whole screenful of mobs, spider turrets that can wash waves of enemies with plasma, heal you, shield you, drop bombs (depends on your class and which skill tree branch you took), various battlecries which enhance your combat and Sentient Weapon skills which send your weapon off on its own to hunt down beasties.
Get the hang of all of this and you'll find yourself flying around the screen at 100mph slashing mechanical goblins into oblivion and obliterating the undead enmasse. Fail to get the hang of things, and you will start to hate the 15 second unskippable cutscene where a Valkyrie comes down, picks your dead body up and replaces you back in the game. Aside from this, the loss of combo meter and a hit to your armor durability (which you can repair back in town), that's the only death penalty.
Fortunately, when you're level 50 you'll actually look forward to dying now and again because you've started to forget what a Valkyrie looks like, although your repair bills will cost you around half a million Bounty by that stage.
On the minus side, if you're still cutting your teeth with the combat the loss of a combo is very devastating, especially if you're up against an elite troll who will happily kill you a few times until you figure out how to tackle it properly.
On the RPG side of things, it's a pure lootfest and statfest, and there are oodles of both to play around with.
Loot follows the usual DiabloII/WoW rarity formula, it'll drop as white, green, blue, purple, orange or red depending on how good it is. There are armor sets to collect which provide additional bonuses, different weapon types to play around with, charms and runes to level up, a level 50 cap to reach and a full level 50 class specific elite set to collect.
The stat side of things is deceptively deep. Choose one of 5 classes:
Commando: Specialises in ranged ballistics and explosives (ranger type)
Bioengineer: Specialises in healing/regen abilities (healer type)
Berserker: Specialises in damage/dual wield (dps type)
Defender: Specialises in defence/shields (tank type)
Champion: Jack of all trades (combination of the above types, minus healing)
Choose an alignment, Human or Cybernetic, this will give you an extra skill tree on top of your class skill tree. Humans have their own special Ruiner abilities, whereas Cybernetics are more damage focused and have to use ruiners that come preset on their weapons.
After that you need to decide how to assign your 95 possible skillpoints as you go. You can't max out everything so have to be selective, which adds more diversity to your character.
On top of this, you can customise your character further by socketing runes into armour and weapons, and there are 100 different types of runes affecting everything from ballistic range, individual weapon damage, defense, health, chance of a proc activating and so on.
You can also equip charms which range from basic level 1 charms that grant small bonuses to epic level 3 charms that can wipe out a whole zone of enemies. Each charm has an associated quest to unlock (find 10 blueprints is a typical level 1 charm quest, kill 12,000 enemies in the air is a rather nasty level 3 charm quest, but fortunately worth it), and each charm will require either runes to be added or, in the case of the higher level charms, completed lower level charms to be socketed.
The depth here is that you can have 32 available socket spots at any one time, plus 2 charms equipped, so the options available to you for customisation are mindboggling.
You can basically run through the storyline and 'finish' the game in around 12 hours. The replayability comes from the fact that you'll then be around level 31 and wanting some new gear. The choice is to either replay the campaign, or jump into individual levels again via the menu system which allows you to replay campaign levels or variations thereof solo, or you can jump into 2-player co-op online (no system link or co-op offline).
The gear itself is particularly noteworthy, there is a huge variety of different equipment to play around with, and in closeup (click the Right Stick when standing still to spin the camera around from head to toe for a better look) you can see the amazing amount of detail the designers have added - little nicks and scratches on breastplates, runes inscribed in the inside of shoulder pieces, swords that have a life of their own - and all of these are visible when the game goes into cutscenes to either provide flashbacks or plotlines to keep you up to date with where you should be going next.
The main reason it didn't get the full 10/10 is the 'polish', in some places you jump in the air and land on top of a zombie and can't move back down to the ground until he moves or you shoot him from above, in other places (and fortunately this only happened once to me) you'll fall through the map into nothingness and have to 'Return to Aesir'/'Return to Mission' to play that bit over, very occasionally you'll hear a random sound effect during the start or end of a cutscene. For some these are gamebreakers, for me they just affect the immersion a little, hence the final score.
Overall it's a real timesink, definitely the best and most comprehensive loot-fest on the 360, the closest thing to it is probably either Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on the old PS2 or Diablo II on the PC. I picked it up for £29.99 at release and basically got 5 hours entertainment out of it for every £1 spent, and I'm still itching to go back and level up my other classes (you get 6 character slots).
Can't wait for the two sequels (the storyline is spread out over a trilogy). Fortunately the first installment manages to wrap up most of the storyline threads admirably, then hits you right at the end with the shape of things to come. If you do take my advice and buy it, read the manual and hunt around Aesir for gameplay tips thoroughly, you'll get more out of the game once you work out how to play effectively.
There you go, score first, and it's a highly subjective score. The reason for it is I've played the game for around 150 hours and any game that can keep me entranced for that period of time is almost perfect, the rest of this review will tell you what's so great about Too Human and why it just falls short of a 10.
Too Human is an action/RPG, with a very heavy emphasis on RPG elements and not so much on the action. What makes it totally unique to any other loot-fest on the 360 is that most of the combat is controlled with the analogue sticks rather than the usual button mashing.
The storyline sees you play as the Aesir god Baldur, he from Norse myth, charged with the protection of mankind along with the other Aesir gods. When a mechanical monster attacks a local pub and starts downing the blood of the locals Baldur goes off to investigate, the the storyline will lead you through the Hall of Heroes, the Ice Forest, World Serpent, Helheim with some side trips to cyberspace and the main Aesir town on the way to restock on weapons, armor, runes and charms.
Devotees of Norse myth should enjoy the storyline, all the main characters like Loki, Thor, Hel, Odin, the Norns, Freya, Heimdall are there, even Garm makes a special appearance, and the way Silicon Knights have reimagined the world as a civilisation knee-deep in nanotechnolgy and cybernetic enhancements is very original and allows them to take a few liberties with the original storylines as told by the verses.
The combat can take a while to get used to, learning to 'let go' and put your faith in an automatic camera is probably the hardest thing to overcome, but once you let those pre-programmed right-thumb motor skills relax, and discover that the camera is always pointing in the direction of the biggest threat, you're good to go.
Your right stick has about 5 different skills linked to it:
Point it in the direction of an enemy, and if you're close enough you'll slide in and start attacking.
Swirl it around when surrounded and you'll knock enemies flying and free up some much needed space.
Press it in conjunction with the left stick to pull off a devastating finisher attack at close range or a lethal weapon-specific fierce attack from long range.
Double tap it to knock enemies up into the air, then keep them juggled there with guns blazing or jump up and continue to attack them, or pull off a mid-air combo by applying a finisher move.
That's the combat in a nutshell, but it does get much deeper. Every action you perform goes towards your combo meter. The higher your combo is, the faster you move, the more damage you do, the more special abilities you'll have at your disposal like massive AoE class-specific Ruiners which can take out a whole screenful of mobs, spider turrets that can wash waves of enemies with plasma, heal you, shield you, drop bombs (depends on your class and which skill tree branch you took), various battlecries which enhance your combat and Sentient Weapon skills which send your weapon off on its own to hunt down beasties.
Get the hang of all of this and you'll find yourself flying around the screen at 100mph slashing mechanical goblins into oblivion and obliterating the undead enmasse. Fail to get the hang of things, and you will start to hate the 15 second unskippable cutscene where a Valkyrie comes down, picks your dead body up and replaces you back in the game. Aside from this, the loss of combo meter and a hit to your armor durability (which you can repair back in town), that's the only death penalty.
Fortunately, when you're level 50 you'll actually look forward to dying now and again because you've started to forget what a Valkyrie looks like, although your repair bills will cost you around half a million Bounty by that stage.
On the minus side, if you're still cutting your teeth with the combat the loss of a combo is very devastating, especially if you're up against an elite troll who will happily kill you a few times until you figure out how to tackle it properly.
On the RPG side of things, it's a pure lootfest and statfest, and there are oodles of both to play around with.
Loot follows the usual DiabloII/WoW rarity formula, it'll drop as white, green, blue, purple, orange or red depending on how good it is. There are armor sets to collect which provide additional bonuses, different weapon types to play around with, charms and runes to level up, a level 50 cap to reach and a full level 50 class specific elite set to collect.
The stat side of things is deceptively deep. Choose one of 5 classes:
Commando: Specialises in ranged ballistics and explosives (ranger type)
Bioengineer: Specialises in healing/regen abilities (healer type)
Berserker: Specialises in damage/dual wield (dps type)
Defender: Specialises in defence/shields (tank type)
Champion: Jack of all trades (combination of the above types, minus healing)
Choose an alignment, Human or Cybernetic, this will give you an extra skill tree on top of your class skill tree. Humans have their own special Ruiner abilities, whereas Cybernetics are more damage focused and have to use ruiners that come preset on their weapons.
After that you need to decide how to assign your 95 possible skillpoints as you go. You can't max out everything so have to be selective, which adds more diversity to your character.
On top of this, you can customise your character further by socketing runes into armour and weapons, and there are 100 different types of runes affecting everything from ballistic range, individual weapon damage, defense, health, chance of a proc activating and so on.
You can also equip charms which range from basic level 1 charms that grant small bonuses to epic level 3 charms that can wipe out a whole zone of enemies. Each charm has an associated quest to unlock (find 10 blueprints is a typical level 1 charm quest, kill 12,000 enemies in the air is a rather nasty level 3 charm quest, but fortunately worth it), and each charm will require either runes to be added or, in the case of the higher level charms, completed lower level charms to be socketed.
The depth here is that you can have 32 available socket spots at any one time, plus 2 charms equipped, so the options available to you for customisation are mindboggling.
You can basically run through the storyline and 'finish' the game in around 12 hours. The replayability comes from the fact that you'll then be around level 31 and wanting some new gear. The choice is to either replay the campaign, or jump into individual levels again via the menu system which allows you to replay campaign levels or variations thereof solo, or you can jump into 2-player co-op online (no system link or co-op offline).
The gear itself is particularly noteworthy, there is a huge variety of different equipment to play around with, and in closeup (click the Right Stick when standing still to spin the camera around from head to toe for a better look) you can see the amazing amount of detail the designers have added - little nicks and scratches on breastplates, runes inscribed in the inside of shoulder pieces, swords that have a life of their own - and all of these are visible when the game goes into cutscenes to either provide flashbacks or plotlines to keep you up to date with where you should be going next.
The main reason it didn't get the full 10/10 is the 'polish', in some places you jump in the air and land on top of a zombie and can't move back down to the ground until he moves or you shoot him from above, in other places (and fortunately this only happened once to me) you'll fall through the map into nothingness and have to 'Return to Aesir'/'Return to Mission' to play that bit over, very occasionally you'll hear a random sound effect during the start or end of a cutscene. For some these are gamebreakers, for me they just affect the immersion a little, hence the final score.
Overall it's a real timesink, definitely the best and most comprehensive loot-fest on the 360, the closest thing to it is probably either Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on the old PS2 or Diablo II on the PC. I picked it up for £29.99 at release and basically got 5 hours entertainment out of it for every £1 spent, and I'm still itching to go back and level up my other classes (you get 6 character slots).
Can't wait for the two sequels (the storyline is spread out over a trilogy). Fortunately the first installment manages to wrap up most of the storyline threads admirably, then hits you right at the end with the shape of things to come. If you do take my advice and buy it, read the manual and hunt around Aesir for gameplay tips thoroughly, you'll get more out of the game once you work out how to play effectively.