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[nenjin]

Neither Dungeons 2 nor War For The Overworld seem to be spiritual successor to the original Dungeon Keeper. They are undoubtedly heavily inspired by it, and might be quite good games in terms of gameplay, but unlikely they'll reach what was unique in DK - the dark atmosphere.

Caverns in Dungeon Keeper are dirty, dark and ugly. Rooms aren't much better. Walls are crooked, floor is uneven, even the bookcases look as if they were about to collapse. In War For The Overworld / Dungeons 1 everything looks so perfect and well polished and rooms are unnaturally well lit, which doesn't give a right impression of being underground. Also, no screams? It was a trademark of Dungeon Keeper. Are you being tortured? Scream. Are you being dropped? Scream. Have you seen an enemy? Scream. Going to bash this wooden door? Scream.

Such little things make difference.

I'll agree I generally don't like WftO's aesthetics. While everything is suitably evil, it's all very well lit and punctuated by intense color usage in places. I don't really like most of the monster designs. None of them seem iconic other than maybe the Cultist and in many cases were examples of "Trying too hard to be different." Like that monsters whose entire head is basically a mallet for pounding on an anvil. Leans more toward the goofy or the inexplicably spikey rather than cool or genuinely spooky.

Still, aesthetics aside, WftO is the closest you're going to get to DK in any form right now.

[Detharon]

None of them seem iconic other than maybe the Cultist and in many cases were examples of "Trying too hard to be different."

It will be hard to design something as memorable as a bile demon, horned reaper, or even dark mistress.

There is also Dwelvers, but I'm not really sure how close/far that is from dungeon keeper.  Looks fun from what little I've seen though.

Seems to be interesting, gameplay-wise. It adds some production chains and items, something that wasn't in the original DK, as it was a game mostly about fighting and developing your creatures, rather than building an underground empire. Not like it matters that much, if I wanted to play something exactly as old DK, I'd just play DK. GOG edition works well on win7

[Mech#4]

I can't remember how much this was the case already, but it would be interesting if "Dungeons 2" was more like a "Rollercoaster Tycoon" game where you have to cater to the heroes, supplying things they need and building specific areas to appeal to different customers. At the height of their enjoyment you then cull them in elaborate death traps to harvest their souls that you use to power your evil amusement park.

[Shadowgandor]

Yea the first Dungeons game was that exactly; A theme park for heroes to get slaughtered at the peak of their enjoyment Dungeons 2 however, promises to be more like Dungeon Keeper.

[Neonivek]

Yea the first Dungeons game was that exactly; A theme park for heroes to get slaughtered at the peak of their enjoyment Dungeons 2 however, promises to be more like Dungeon Keeper.

Yeah but even the original Dungeons didn't do that concept right... I should know a Dungeon Tycoon game has been one of the games I've always wanted to happen.

[nenjin]

I can't remember how much this was the case already, but it would be interesting if "Dungeons 2" was more like a "Rollercoaster Tycoon" game where you have to cater to the heroes, supplying things they need and building specific areas to appeal to different customers. At the height of their enjoyment you then cull them in elaborate death traps to harvest their souls that you use to power your evil amusement park.

That was Dungeons to a T. Except it turns out, designing your entire dungeon as a theme park where the visitors do the same thing over and over with little variation is boring as hell. You could basically control the entire game with two or three rooms. It actually made making a "real dungeon" self-defeating because it was too large to be navigated by heroes efficiently, and the cap on the # of rooms you could build basically forced you to build the smallest, more boring dungeons possible.

And don't even get me started on the actual campaign levels....blech.

[Niveras]

If they approached it from the other side, like an actual Theme Hospital/'Coaster Tycoons/etc sim and mapped that to a "dark/evil" theme, rather than taking a dark/evil concept and trying to get a game out of it, it might've worked better. (Substance over style.)

[nenjin]

I guess what really ticked me off, coming from Dungeon Keeper, was that a lot of the level was already set for you when you started. Corridors already dug to the entry ways, big long hallways running through the levels. Even in the sandbox, this was true. And I was kinda like "I'm not really building a dungeon. I'm just decorating it and mildly enticing the AI to walk through it in the order I require for the most "juice." Oh god and the decorations. It was fun for about the first 4 hours until you realized, there was no point to caring. Just throw crap in there, the only person who cares how it looks is you and when you're redoing it every single level because decorations are a core mechanic in opening up other rooms and what not.....it totally sucked the fun out of it.