An ugly, broken mess that somehow manages to be fun.  

When I first saw the previews and gameplay clips on Arcania I was convinced that it would be my RPG of the year for 2010.  Unfortunately I was way off.  Even though the game failed grossly in living up to my expectations, I still managed to find enough enjoyment to play through it twice.  

Who is Arcania geared toward?  Fans of European RPGs should be right at home with Arcania.  If you enjoyed Two Worlds, Risen or Divinity 2, you should be able to syphon at least some enjoyment out of this title.  

Who should avoid Arcania?  Gamers that hated Oblivion, Two Worlds, Risen, Divinity or any of the other Gothic games.  

Is it truly "Open World?"  Not really.  The game is broken down by chapters.  New sections of the world become available when you complete these chapters.  Until you do, there will almost always be some story related reason why the next area is closed off.  

You said "broken" in your tag line.  You know that will open a huge can of worms right?  Yes.  For many gamers, this game will not break.  Some folks may encounter small glitches or quests that they cannot complete because of poor programming.  However, for some less fortunate souls (myself included), you may run into glitches that actually freeze the game indefinitely.  Simple advice, SAVE OFTEN!  

As a side note for my achievement junkies, understand that their are 2 achievements you will not be able to get unless the game gets patched.  And given the lack of information I've seen on Jowood's website, I wouldn't expect that patch anytime soon or even at all.  Let's hope I'm wrong.  Just know you will most likely not get more than 950/1000 for Arcania if you decide to buy it.  

Ugly?  Yes, the character models, animations and frame rate in this game border on horrible.  Actually, I think there are a total of 4 or 5 (slight exaggeration) character face animations that get reused for all the characters in the game.  The frame rate isn't quite as bad as Two Worlds, but worse than Risen and Divinity at times.  

Counterpoint:  The landscape graphics are awesome.  Areas of the world you can see from a distance look beautiful.  Also, the lighting effects in the game are outstanding.  Much more advanced than anything I've seen on 360 to date.

I hate difficulty settings in games, how will this effect me as I play?  If you are not an achievement junkie, then stay far away from Gothic Mode.  I am an achievement junkie, so I braved Gothic Mode for my first playthru.  Essentially, the game does nothing more than handicap your health and attacks while boosting the enemy's.  There is no added skill needed to finish Gothic Mode.  Just the patience to run around in circles while taking shots at the enemy for 3-5 minutes at a time.   Oh, and a larger supply of health potions.

My advice:  if you are not an achievement junkie and also believe difficulty settings often make games more tedious than hard/fun, just play it on an easier setting.  I had much more fun playing the game normally on my second playthrough.  

What is the Level Cap?  30.  As with many European RPGs, you need to have your character focus his skills in a particular area to be successful.  There will be no jack-of-all trades option here.  You'll get 90 skill points by gamesend.  That was enough points for me to max everything in the melee fighter category and to slightly develop my lightning skills.  Keep in mind that my lightning magic pretty much sucked with the 20+ points I was allotted to apply to it.  

What about the story?  This is an RPG right?  Huh?  Oh right.  I guess the game does have a story.  It's not particularly interesting or innovative.  It's actually a bit disjointed and felt like an afterthought to me.  Don't expect to be reminded of why you love  Final Fantasy 7 so much here.  

You sound like a hater, was there ANYthing good about Arcania?  Yes.  There are virtually no load times in the game unless you die or load a save.  I thought that was awesome.  The combat can be fun and requires more than just button mashery if you want to succeed without quaffing potions all day.  And as I stated earlier, the lighting effects were awesome and really complimented the landscape of the world.  

So should I buy this?  Unless anything I said makes you want to rush out and get it, I would wait until it hits the $20 rack.  Or just avoid it altogether.  Most prior Gothic fans I've run into hated it and in my opinion there are games out there for 360 that do what Arcania does better than Arcania.