Got this game and played a few times with friends, the quote in the title was from one. The game is worth it just for the miniatures and tiles alone (dracolich is worth the price of the entire game).

Each player plays a hero and also acts like the DM, there are 3 phases to each player's turn. The Hero phase where the character acts, using powers similar to what 4e would use. Exploration phase occurs next, if the character is on an explored edge then a new tile appears which a monster appears on and an encounter (traps, random attack, change in environment, etc) may happen. The third phase is the foe phase, if a new tile wasn't explored then an encounter happens. The foes under the control of the player act as well. All foes have a set "AI" chain of actions that they follow. Players get some choice in how they act and can game the system a little (place the foe in a convenient position for example).

Players act as a team and for most adventures they either all win or all lose. Resources are shared (healing surges and experience points). Characters can level up to 2nd level by rolling a 20 on an attack or disarm. Due to the way each player acts as a PC and a DM, a person can actually play the adventures alone if they wished. In fact some of the adventures are designed to be single player.

Great game, great minis and tiles, and you can like it even if you are not a fan of 4e.

I too played this game at Gen Con Indy this year. When I first looked at the game it had a lot of potential. I've been a big fan of castle Ravenloft since the original AD&D adventure came out, so suffice to say I was looking forward to testing the game out.

My expectations were apparently too high however. We played a beginner scenario in which the players have to retrieve the icon of ravenloft from the chapel. Everything was alright until the final chamber. The only issue I had was that the monsters could attack everyone on a tile (which was a square with a grid, I honestly can't remember how many squares are on a tile), while the PCs could only attack a single creature that they (for the most part) had to be adjacent to. The characters also have 2 healing tokens total to use for the entire group, and if a single player dies, the game is over. Keep this in mind when I talk about the chapel later on.

At first we figured that we could remedy this issue with a few house rules. But at the end it just simply became to impossible to overcome with such rules. In the final room each time a player took a turn the spawned a monster or triggered a trap. Bear in mind that the monsters can attack the entire party (since the room was about 1 tile in size) while the party can only attack a single creature. You win the game when all of the creatures are dead. Since it was very unlikely that a creature would be killed in a single hit, the monsters and traps just kept piling up until they overwhelmed the party. There simply was nothing you could do to conquer the scenario.

As the previous reviewer mentioned, I am making the assumption that what we played was the final version of the game. And keep in mind that this is only a single scenario out of the booklet, but we were told by the guy running it (who didn't have much more of a clue about the rules and game play as we did) recommended it as a good starting scenario. It is possible that the other scenarios are set up a bit better, and would thus be more fun to play. However, with the frustration the one I played left me with, I honestly have no intention of spending the money to find out.

Caveat: I played this game at GenCon (Indianapolis; August 4 – 8, 2010) however, as of this writing, the game is not yet available. At the time it was a complete shrink-wrapped game box and package as one would purchase and I am inclined to believe that it is the finished product, pending any severe issues that may have come up during the course of people playing it at the convention.

Now, on with the review:
The components of this game are many. There are several sheets of punch tiles that comprise the game boards, character cards, status modifiers, health pips, coffins, etc. The box, itself, makes for a poor means to store all of these bits and pieces and you may consider baggies, counter trays, or other means of keeping certain tokens from intermingling between sessions to make set-up go a little more smoothly. The parts themselves are very sturdy wood-stock bits (similar to those used by Fantasy Flight Games – for those familiar with their board game offerings) and are therefore quite robust and will last you many-many years without damage or loss from being blown aside by a mild cough. There are several plastic miniatures, of excellent quality (unpainted), that are conveniently color coded by type. Undead (skeletons, zombies, etc) are white, animals are brown, spectral undead (ghosts, specters, etc) are a translucent blue, notorious villains (Strahd, werewolf, etc) are a dark grey, and the heroes are alight grey. I found this distinction to be very helpful in taking quick glances of the board and seeing how monsters were grouped versus the distribution of the PCs as well as seeing where any allies were located and obstacles between without having to examine every mini on the grid. This also makes monster placement simpler in that you are now examining a smaller pool of minis to locate rats, versus having to search though all of them at once.

The game ‘board’ is crafted through the course of play. Several tiles represent rooms and corridors of the castle and as you and your fellow heroes move, more of the castle is revealed. This is similar to the Avalon Hill game “The Betrayal at the House on the Hill”. Unlike that game, heroes do not need to enter the tile/room to place it but simply be near the edge of a tile. With each tile enters a new monster, and possibly an encounter based on the mark on the tile, who goes under the control of the player that drew it and it will perform certain specific actions on the monster turn of the game. Defeating monsters gains the heroes equipment and experience points. The experience points go into a community pool and can be used to level up your hero or negate certain encounters.

Aside from the rule booklet, there is also a scenario booklet. The scenario you choose will determine the victory conditions for the game. The game itself is cooperative and either the entire group wins or all of the heroes lose. Some of the scenarios seemed capable of being linked together (the scenario we played was “Hunt for Strahd, part one”) and can become part of a larger and longer game played over several weekends. I should also think that one could also invent new scenarios not included with the original book.

While the hero cards are definitely crafted with the current Dungeons and Dragons rules set in mind (4th edition) they only seem to have a 1st level and 2nd level power set. This makes the bookkeeping minor and even someone (like myself) who has not played the fourth edition of the game is capable of comprehending and understanding their hero.

I found this game quite enjoyable and useful. It serves perfectly well as a board game by itself. For those Table-Top RPG gamers, its beautifully printed tiles, tokens, and the included minis, can very easily serve as dungeon mapping for your home campaigns. This game would also do well for those parents out there looking for a way to let their children experience RPG style play without delving into the morass of character sheets, race selection, statistic generation, and all of the bulk of the RPG system. Definately woth the price.