role-playing

Dungeon Siege: Legends of Arrana is similar to the original Dungeon Siege, you embark on a journey liberating the the land from the grip of evil bent on destroying the remnant of a once thrived civilization, except this time, you spent most of your time on the jungle island of Arrana. The gameplay is fairly linear, you hash and slash your way through tons of monsters and smash gazilion crates and vases looking for loots and treasures. In fact, this game seems to emphasize on smashing boxes cause you spend more time smashing boxes than killing monsters, so that portion of the gameplay can get very tedious. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that quite a few of the crates are empty or contain useless items, of course, except for a few time when you really do fine powerful armors and weapons. Unlike the original Dungeon Siege, this game presents you with more powerful weapons, spells, and armors which makes the gameplay more exciting but less of a challenge cause the monster don't stand a chance once your group is well equiped. Dungeon Siege is known for its impressive graphics, so Legend of Arrana is no exception. The graphics rendering of the jungle is beautiful and provides a scenic and breath-taking view of the land. If you like the original game, you will like this one cause it is an extension of the first. If you never played the game, you should give it a try, especially when it comes with the original game so that is a good incentive to go out and get one.

I'll have to agree with other reviewers. The game play is just too easy and after a while gets too monotonous. The graphics are great and the scenery/music is excellent. I enjoyed the original game much more. You had to work harder to kill the bosses and it required more strategy and interaction. In LoA, all you really need to focus on is pushing potions. The original game also includes a multiplayer map that is completely different than the single player game, which added to hours of extra enjoyment. Not so in LoA. They really skimped out on the expansion pack.
If you've never played DS before, go ahead and buy it since it includes the original. You'll love it! If you're buying this because you have DS, its probably not worth it. I'm much more excited about Dungeon Siege II after seeing the trailer. Hopefully, the game lives up to the trailer.

Ok, first off, let me defuse a few misconceptions about DS: Many people find it boring because you just gather stuff and party members and walk up to creatures and let the computer take over. This is true, but only with the default settings. There is a control panel that lets you adjust this behavior in many ways. You can play it the default way or all-manual (very hard to do) or any number of ways in-between.

Now then, on to the bad: The UI can be hard to control. Whenever you are in a tight area, the camera wants to move into a safe position, so as soon as you move the mouse away from the edge of the screen, the camera "bobs up" to look down at your character(s). This can really throw off your ability to manage the character(s). Also, the excitement of doing something new is often tainted by the fact that it's a thin modification of the previous steps. I like the cut-scenes and the puzzles, I just wish there were more of them.

Ok, so the good: The AI players make life a lot easier, and once you get the hang of managing the AI's settings this game can be a joy. Also, there are tons of ways to play and strategies that you can use. The magic system alone lets you play the game in dozens of different ways. The weapons and armor are just complex enough (just a bit more than Diablo) to make you think about how you want to equip your characters. It's often a hard choice, and I like that in a video game.... your milage may vary. Creatures have various advantages and disadvantages over you, and you need to figure out each one to know how to attack. Overall, it's a very good game, but not one for people who just want to plow forward and finish in a few days (you could, but you would miss a lot and the game would not be as fun).

PS: This review is actually for the basic game, not the expansion, but I'm mostly responding to other points that people have made that are the same for either or both.