This is a game I played on an off for years, and both loved it and grew frustrated by it as I played. This last year I decided it was time to beat the game finally, so I dedicated a bit more of my gaming time to it, and feel I can give some fairly informed thoughts on the game.

Darkest Dungeon has a fun party management system that is well designed and the heart and soul of the game. Do you select your ranged skills for your Highwayman so he can be in position 3? Or do you take his pos 1/2 skills and play more of a high risk high reward style of play up front? Do you put your jester in the back making him a buffing character? Or do you put him further forward so you can apply bleed and be more of a DPS character? It allows you to make a lot of different parties in different ways, and as you play you learn what combo's works best for each situation, and which ones you prefer to play.

The enemies also have positions that work differently for each enemy type, and some of your characters will let you manipulate the positions of your enemies to mess them up or put them in a position for one of your other characters to pummel them into the dirt. So overall the game play is EXCELLENT.

Where I had my struggles with the game was losing characters. When I first started playing the game it really hurt to lose that Leper that I had been using effectively for so many dives into the dungeon. I eventually learned that dying is an important aspect of the game, and if you upgrade your stagecoach you will be just fine. The death of the characters also adds weight to your decisions in the game. If you decide to get too crazy with a party/skill composition there is a very real chance you are going to lose some of your characters. So if you decide to play Darkest dungeon just accept right off the bat that death is part of the grim dark theme of the game.

The other aspect of the game that people may not like is the tone and atmosphere of the game. It is a grim dark themed horror game. Horror is not really my jam to be honest, but the game play and how the theme is executed, and the great narration of the game drew me in despite my lack of interest in the horror genre.

Overall the game play is excellent, and the setting, style and art of the game is unique and intriguing. I would highly recommend this to people looking for a great rogue like dungeon crawler that stands out in an over crowded market.

Finally played this game after a small and interesting streamer commented that he preferred it to its follow-up, which cleared a question I didn't know I had.

So. Much like Slay the Spire, it's almost mechanically perfect. But the mechanics are wider than in StS, with more systems to consider. Both games have about the same level of "RNG danger", which is high, and needs to be taken into account when deciding actions, and it will trip you up occasionally. That is fine.
But unlike many roguelikes and roguelites (including STS), here you won't really start anew every run but will try to make your campaign advance, and your heroes progress, regardless of the "accidents" your adventurers will encounter. It is a real campaign.

This is interesting, gives it some form of HoMM vibe when building your team and hamlet up. It is more demanding but also more immersive than the one-and-done design of other roguelikes, including DD2.
All other technical aspects of the game are perfectly serviceable, with a special mention for the best-in-class narrator.

Now I see why it is a classic. It is well deserved.

I want to love it but....

on MacOS, it ignores about 1 in 3 clicks. This is a bug that hasn't been fixed in 8 years.

DEVELOPERS: Hint: It's a mouse down/mouse up timing thing. Holding down the mouse button for a little longer guarantees a click. Right click also works fine.

In my top20 games of all time. If you like turn-based-RPGs. I'd say >15% chance you don't like this game.

I've completed many hard games over the last 30 years, some including Cup Head on the hardest difficulty, multiple dark Souls games, Elden Ring, all Bio-shock games on normal difficulty without dying once..

Difficult games, but fair to an extent.... But this game takes the absolute piss. Your "Heroes" get weaker the more they level up. A level 5 Hero will only tackle Dungeons >= Dungeon Level 5. Dungeon level 5 is impossible, even for a full team of level 4-5's. This is the same team that stomped through level 1-3 dungeons. Once you hit level 5 it goes from challenging to just outright impossible.

Initial bosses can be beat with just a reasonable team and decent play, but the second round of bosses just outright jumps to impossible difficulty. Its a rock-paper-scissors style battle where you have to counter the boss specifically and has no room for anything else. Otherwise your team is just wiped out..

With the DLC it just makes the game even less fun (the DLC makes the game about 3x harder, not more fun)
Not to even mention the tedious mechanics of constantly healing stress and removing negative perks through the sanitarium.

You seem to hit a complete brick wall in this game after you start getting your teams to level 4 and beyond, enemies have mega health, your team members miss a lot, bosses are impossible, everyone gets blood plague.. it's just absolute garbage..

There's SO many mechanics I just HATE, which doesn't necessarily make the game challenging, it's just actually completely unfair. It's like trying to play chess against Stockfish on maximum level, the only way you can win would be to go online and get the answers given to you.. F*** this game I think it's the most hated game I've ever come across in the last 30 years and I've played a lot of games since back from the Amiga days.

The aesthetics and the way it looks are great but the gameloop isn't good unless you are afflicted with Masochistic irl or a wiki digger.
Things look cool at first but at the end of the day its just a very well veiled frustrating waste of time for those who value any feel of progress which you will lose unless you're very well aknowledged thanks to guides. Attempts to experiment and figure out stuff on your own isn't rewarded and instead will result in more grind for the sake of grind. Animation of attacks and turns are also making things to drag for no good reason and get annoying to watch. RNG aspects feels bad all around including positive ones.
Not a game to recommend.

The Dark Souls of dungeon crawlers.

+ challenging gameplay
+ nice visual part

- there is ABSOLUTE NO WAY to prevent your characters from dying. A single unlucky roll of "dice" makes your fully equipped hero dead in a single turn, without any chances to prevent that. No preparations will help. No party combinations. No items. Nothing. IMHO this is an ill moment in the game design

Simply put, a must-have for gamers.

Repetitive, after hours gets boring, constant grinding, Bosses repeats as well.
Stupid quirks and diseases ''awarded'' at the end of run despite resisting it throughout dungeon!