Dungeon Defenders. While the name may be remniscent of the classic tabletop fantasy RPG many of us know and love, Dungeon Defenders offers an entirely different world and a completely unique game experience.

A hybrid between tower defense and action RPG, Dungeon Defenders places you in the role of one of four young warriors left home alone while the Heroes of the Realm are away in battle. When a mishap threatens to unleash the diabolical Old Ones from their imprisonment within the Eternia Crystals, however, it's up to you to devend the Eternia Crystals and save the world from a new age of darkness!

The gameplay of Dungeon Defenders is deceptively simple: find choke points you can use to defend the Eternia Crystals, build your towers in the Build Phase, and fight alongside and manage those towers during the Combat Phase. But the simplicity of this system belies its incredible depth. The real strategy of the game comes from upgrading your characters and equipment, allowing you to tackle increasingly-difficult challenges and difficulty levels, all the way up to the dreaded Nightmare Hardcore mode.

While the content included in the base game is great, it pales in comparison to the array of incredible DLC available for the game. The opposite-gendered Heroes offer speed boosts and different abilities compared to the original four, the Barbarian allows for incredible DPS-oriented gameplay, the Series EV offers a number of variable-cost beams to buff and protect your towers, the Summoner brings forth minions and can even transform his play experience into a full-time RTS, and the Jester can move towers, run and upgrade speedily, deal incredible damage, and (with luck) control the battlefield with her Wheel of Fortuna skill, a true jack of all trades. Each of these heroes comes with their own map that highlights their skills while offering new and innovative gameplay mechanics. However, the ultimate challenge comes in the Quest for the Lost Eternia Shards DLC, which not only includes an entirely new campaign with even more difficult enemies, but also unlocks the aforementioned Nightmare and Hardcore options for all of the game's levels.

Still not enough for you? Each level, once completed, offers Pure Strategy and Survival modes, where you can pit your tower-building skills against increasingly-difficult waves of enemies for increasingly powerful rewards, as well as a number of special Challenges that range from holiday celebrations to complete inversions of the core gameplay experience. There are literally hundreds of hours of content available in Dungeon Defenders, and the experience is worth every one of them.

The game does have its problems. The menus can be rather clunky, the Eternia Shards maps are an incredible difficulty spike from the campaign levels even on the easier difficulties, and the loot dropping mechanics are a little obtuse. Additionally, while they don't overshadow the original characters, the DLC hero classes tend to be a requirement rather than an option on some of the more difficult maps, and the DLC map packs tend to drop better reward loot than the originals. Still, the problems don't really get in the way of the fun, and the developers at Trendy Entertainment are always responsive to feedback.

On that note, I'd like to point out that Trendy Entertainment (the people who make the game) are incredibly open and helpful, and always willing to help people out in a pinch. These are some of the most hardworking game developers I've seen, and they engage with the Dungeon Defenders community on an almost unprecedented level--even rivaling Mojang of Minecraft fame. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to visit the Dungeon Defenders forums, which, in addition to offering numerous helpful guides and trading opportunities for the game, also serve as home to the Trendy blog, which provides and open window into the development of Dungeon Defenders, as well as into their current developments of Dungeon Defenders' upcoming sequel. This is a studio incredibly devoted to their art, and they have a bright future ahead of them. :)

Dungeon Defenders. While the name may be remniscent of the classic tabletop fantasy RPG many of us know and love, Dungeon Defenders offers an entirely different world and a completely unique game experience. A hybrid between tower defense and action RPG, Dungeon Defenders places you in the role of one of four young warriors left home alone while the Heroes of the Realm are away in battle. When a mishap threatens to unleash the diabolical Old Ones from their imprisonment within the Eternia Crystals, however, it's up to you to devend the Eternia Crystals and save the world from a new age of darkness! The gameplay of Dungeon Defenders is deceptively simple: find choke points you can use to defend the Eternia Crystals, build your towers in the Build Phase, and fight alongside and manage those towers during the Combat Phase. But the simplicity of this system belies its incredible depth. The real strategy of the game comes from upgrading your characters and equipment, allowing you to tackle increasingly-difficult challenges and difficulty levels, all the way up to the dreaded Nightmare Hardcore mode. While the content included in the base game is great, it pales in comparison to the array of incredible DLC available for the game. The opposite-gendered Heroes offer speed boosts and different abilities compared to the original four, the Barbarian allows for incredible DPS-oriented gameplay, the Series EV offers a number of variable-cost beams to buff and protect your towers, the Summoner brings forth minions and can even transform his play experience into a full-time RTS, and the Jester can move towers, run and upgrade speedily, deal incredible damage, and (with luck) control the battlefield with her Wheel of Fortuna skill, a true jack of all trades. Each of these heroes comes with their own map that highlights their skills while offering new and innovative gameplay mechanics. However, the ultimate challenge comes in the Quest for the Lost Eternia Shards DLC, which not only includes an entirely new campaign with even more difficult enemies, but also unlocks the aforementioned Nightmare and Hardcore options for all of the game's levels. Still not enough for you? Each level, once completed, offers Pure Strategy and Survival modes, where you can pit your tower-building skills against increasingly-difficult waves of enemies for increasingly powerful rewards, as well as a number of special Challenges that range from holiday celebrations to complete inversions of the core gameplay experience. There are literally hundreds of hours of content available in Dungeon Defenders, and the experience is worth every one of them. The game does have its problems. The menus can be rather clunky, the Eternia Shards maps are an incredible difficulty spike from the campaign levels even on the easier difficulties, and the loot dropping mechanics are a little obtuse. Additionally, while they don't overshadow the original characters, the DLC hero classes tend to be a requirement rather than an option on some of the more difficult maps, and the DLC map packs tend to drop better reward loot than the originals. Still, the problems don't really get in the way of the fun, and the developers at Trendy Entertainment are always responsive to feedback. On that note, I'd like to point out that Trendy Entertainment (the people who make the game) are incredibly open and helpful, and always willing to help people out in a pinch. These are some of the most hardworking game developers I've seen, and they engage with the Dungeon Defenders community on an almost unprecedented level--even rivaling Mojang of Minecraft fame. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to visit the Dungeon Defenders forums, which, in addition to offering numerous helpful guides and trading opportunities for the game, also serve as home to the Trendy blog, which provides and open window into the development of Dungeon Defenders, as well as into their current developments of Dungeon Defenders' upcoming sequel. This is a studio incredibly devoted to their art, and they have a bright future ahead of them. :)