Sometimes you just want to kill stuff
Really, this game reminds me of street fighter even though they are different games. At first you think its kind of dumb, you just smash buttons and it seems random whether you win or not. But after playing a bit there really is an elegant system to the madness and a serious difference between playing correctly and just randomly pressing buttons.
As far as the story, yes you may need to do some outside reading about norse mythology to get whats going on. But if you follow closely its pretty cool how they super imposed super-tech of the old legends.
My one detraction so far is that range combat could've used a little tweaking. Depending on the situation it is sometimes hard to change targets especially if you are trying to dodge a large mob at the same time.