A wine that has aged better than you might expect, might want to take another look..
I originally played it for 6-minutes as the wizard. Between all the negative reviews, the way the game starts out, and the graphics (at the time I had a 32 inch LCD TV), it looked like junk.
We just bought a big new TV for the main TV room, so the 'old' 46 inch LCD got demoted to the game room. I was bored, and put this game back in and started up a new Warrior character. I was amazed at the graphics after the first level. This is probably the best looking RPG Slasher game I have seen, for being 6 years old it looks terrific, much better than I initially thought. You have to play in the zoomed-in mode, not the top-down mode to get the full graphic affect.
The RPG-Action formula is present, and it is true there is nothing to new here, but if you miss the classic monster-bash-getloot-level formula (like I do) then this game is refreshing. What seemed tired and old in 2006 is fresh and fun in 2011. The story exists, but you don't have to make moral choices or read a bunch of dialog, just go kill stuff in beautiful colors with great looking effects.
The big drawback is the camera, which is perfectly fine 75% of the time, but you will hit a few levels where you are battling it as much as any of the monsters. Was it rushed? Probably some, but the formula is solid and the graphics are honestly amazing, better than many of the reviews let on, especially if you have a large TV so you can see the details and colors they put into the game. The straight forward level design is nice, no 'what do I do next' or '500 thin go-fetch' or '500 go kill this and come back' quests; you don't have to romance a **** virtual grilfrind while hiding that fact from your real-life **** girlfriend, and do on...
Since this genera of game has fallen away or become overly cluttered or overly 'open-ended', I'd say revisit Dark Kingdom and you may find that this wine had aged very well.