Diablo's diabolical cousin.
You play as DeathSpank, a dumb-as-bricks "heroic" hero, trying to locate the generic Artifact. In a sense, DeathSpank is a good blend on The Tick and your typical warrior from any game. He's loud, rude, and very much hates orphans. A lot. As you adventure through the land, you'll run into a outrageously funny cast of characters, giving the game a Monkey Island feel. The game definitely delivers the laughs throughout the game, but that's not all. It also presents in a very goofy manner a decent story to boost. Typical story, but I think that's just part of the story, being a little generic. Did I mention the generic Artifact?
The gameplay is a lot like a good Diablo clone. A hack and slash with loads of loot, and loads of enemies to use your loot on. The enemies are funny as well. The first set you'll encounter is the stupid chickens who are hurting the poor, defenseless fire-breathing dragons. Later in the game, you'll battle anything from elves to swamp donkeys. Questing is setup much like Diablo/World of WarCraft. When you see a person with a quest icon "!" above their head, you talk to them to receive a quest for your journal. Upon completing the quest, you'll gain some more experience, a loot item, and then the ability to get more "!" quests until they're out. Some of the quest are set up more like an adventure game. You'll have to interact with characters and try to unlock new information form them to complete a quest.
The voice acting is hilarious, especially DeathSpank, and the music is overall catchy. It's not an epic sounding adventure like other titles out there, but it's a download game. I wasn't expecting too much in terms of sound or graphics. Graphically, this isn't the most flashy looking game out there, but it holds it own. I've heard issues with frame rate, but that wasn't really a huge issue with me in the game (and frame rate is a pet peeve of mine!).
The problems with DeathSpank aren't from voice or presentation; it's from the overall game. It's fun, and very addictive, but there's a lot of grind in some areas. There's also a point of the game where you just feel the loot and gold (especially the gold) is just useless. One feature I liked about the loot is it would auto-equip your armor, which was helpful, but the inventory feels a little sloppy. It's possible that it just felt sloppy because you don't have a mouse to quickly sort through your stuff. Then again, it could be Sacred 2's console inventory, which I felt was atrocious.
There's also no online co-op, which would have been a really fun feature. This game actually has co-op, but it's local. At least it's there, but this really effects the overall experience when recommending to your friend when you're claiming this game is like Diablo. Loners need not to worry about this, of course!
Finally, the biggest beef and the overall reason why I can't recommend for everyone is the length. It's a good length, at least 10 hours, and not priced too high, but the game's ending just sot of ends. And it seems to end at a point that gets you pumped up for more, but you don't really get more. You just end up doing the same. (As of now, the next episode is coming out).
If there were a boss run that you could do and some online with loot trading, it would have made up a little for the shortness of the game. The basic problem with the game is just there's nothing to do after you complete the game. In the Diablo series, while you might finish the game, the game just has so much more loot and more levels that you really feel like a 3rd or 4th playthrough isn't a chore. DeathSpank can be.
Verdict: Play the demo first and justify the price