What are the gameplay mechanics like? I did a two second search on gamefaqs and all I could see was that the original got a 2 out of 10 on Eurogamer, haha.
The Eurogamer thing was a bit of a scandal cuz it's not that bad. I think the review was written by a hater, some kind of Warcraft fanboy or something, very biased.
It's basically a full action MMORPG. No tab targetting, fast paced combat (faster than cRPG, closer to quake/tribes). You level up by using skills, like to raise fireball spell you hit mobs with it, it raises your fire magic skill, fireball skill. Clans takeover cities and hamlets, use them as bases for territory control, good ones have nicer hunting spots, dungeons nearby. Other clans can siege them, raid them ,etc.
The combat system is REALLY good, great physics, lotsa skill needed, and fun. The game just had other major problems:
-the biggest was that you basically needed to learn everything to compete against vet players so it was a ridiculous grind newbies. Huge block to get new players in, especially 1 year in.
-Everything was kind of half-ass, basic beta level stuff. Dungeons, city designs, combat balance (naked spellcasting was OP vs actually gearing up), crafting, resources in gameworld, npc areas, economy/markets/vendors, stuff full of design flaws and screaming for overhauls. Nothing too serious by itself, but when you take it all together, and combine with basically no serious content updates/patches for 2 years, people started heading for exits.
What the Greek scoundrels did was string people along with false expansion promises when they were really holding back all these ovrhauls for one giant "relaunch". I get their logic, cuz it's gonna make a much larger marketing splash as "Darkfall 2", combined with a wipe, maybe being on steam, etc. But they really hosed over their existing players by not gradually improving the game as most MMOs do.
