Cheap to buy + addictive = win!
There is a lot of variance in the characters that you can make: 5 classes: shaman, rogue, mage, archer and warrior (these are not official names but thats how they feel). Of which you have to pick 2 classes. So that is 20 character combinations right there. More if you consider that every class has a tree. Another plus: for gold, you can reset your talent points and redistribute the points. I few combinations and each felt unique. I finished the game in normal mode (there are two more harder levels) with a a mage/shaman (uses mage mana regen talent and lighting attacks from shaman) and a warrior/shaman (like a paladin). Right now I am advancing with these on the harder mode. But I keep going back and trying new character combinations. It is just fun to try the various spells and attacks. There are some synergies between the trees that are fun to exploit. So for example the archer tree has a talent that increases critical chance and the warrior tree has a talent that increases the damage done with critical hits. Such synergies are common place.
The game is linear. You have to get to various points to advance the story and although there might be more than one path to get to the next location, they all converge there. There are pillars along the way, which are use to navigate. You can go back to any pillar once you have click on it the first time. So it is very easy to turn in quests.
The game seems well balanced in that as you move along the quest line and you level, you encounter monsters around your level. So you don't have to clear the same area multiple times to get to be able to advance in the main quest. Just don't skip side quests and you should be fine.
The game is fairly stable. As it turns out it was released in Germany one year earlier than the US. So the US release includes all patches from the German version. The only complains I have is that the game runs slow at times. Particularly when you get to a new location. Aiming can be difficult in frantic situations. You have to target right on the bad guy to attack it. The stuff that people talk about voice acting and so forth are true but really not game breakers.
My actual grade for the game is 7.5 because it is single play only and because of the stuff I mentioned in the previous paragraph. But given the $10 value. This is a 9.5 score game which in my book means highly recommended.