Haxxorz

I was privileged to beta test Demigod well before the game was released. My beta testing was awarded with a pewter model of the Rook (a large castle like creature) and a poster of the same character. My experience with the game has made me believe that charging 50 bucks for a game is indeed reasonable. However, if you are of the opinion that games should be less than that, than you are in luck. Demigod now retails for 40 dollars or less.

Unfortunately, not many users agreed with me when Demigod was initially released; software pirates had hacked the game and ultimately destroyed server load times for the opening weekend. This resulted in terrible reviews and stunned growth for Demigod for the week that followed. The folks at Stardock and GPG made a public announcement confirming that this was the case, and they would attempt to lock the game down with future security updates. After another week of waiting, server lag and drop times had been reduced, and players were regaining faith in the game.

I started with this tid bit of info mostly because I want this review to ignore what I consider to be "an act of God." Stardock/GPG can not be held responsible for something they could not predict, especially when they were trying to benefit the community and those who legally bought the game by not incorporating obnoxious anti-piracy code into the game. It should also be noted that their quick response to the connection issues earns them even higher praise.

Demigods horrible opening weekend aside, the game is simply a "refined DOTA" Demigod's creative models, mated with even a more impressive, though not so well know, back story, results in a true art form. This art form is accentuated by the Supreme Commander - full zoom+/- engine.

There are only a few minor annoyances with Demigod. The largest of all of them is the bugginess of the game. The game seems like it wasn't quite fixed by the time of release, and there were a number of game crashes and exploits. Now that some time has passed, GPG has mostly made up for this in frequent updates.

While GPGs updates may be a plus to holding Demigod together, they have often made false promises on additional content. It is possible that with the bad rap the game got to begin with, GPG has been rushing added content to keep fans hooked; however, they have hurt themselves more by not meeting the deadlines. (1)

(1): We are now over one month overdue on two additional Demigods, and Frogboy (The primary "press" source for the public) has said that it will be yet another two weeks until the new Demigods are released. Our group of gamers have been a bit turned off by GPG/Stardocks slowness to release new content such as these Demigods.

Conclusion:
Demigod is a refreshing, artistic, and creative form of DOTA that narrows the gap between n00bs and pros, but some recent false promises, a lack of content, and some recent buginess has made what would be a perfect game, a good game.

Graphics: (AToR) 9
Engine: 5 (-4 due to bugginess)
Sound: 10
Music: 9
Story/Creativity: 9
Fun: 9
Camera: 9 (-1 for auto rotation upon death)
Overall: 8.6