Did it deliver?
In spades, IMO. A diverse range of gamers I've shown this to have been hooked, including a guy who's most adventurous RPG experience ever was Fallout NV. He only plays FPS like Bad Company 2. And he was up into to the wee hours playing this.
My bro, who hasn't played anything more adventurous than TF2 for the last 2 years, just stayed up until the wee hours playing it too. He was so sucked in he was barely able to hold a conversation. "I'm building my tunnel." That's all he could manage for 2 hours straight. I haven't seen him game this hard since we were kids playing stuff in front of the Nintendo....
15 years ago.Every game has it's downsides. This game's, to me, is the emergency art changes right now and the fact that there is no real end game. Eventually making things pretty and maxing out gear will no longer be fun. You will hit a wall where you've done everything and gotten everything and the game will stop offering you anything but mindless chopping.
But that's a while out yet, for just about anyone.
Lag is irritating at times, but it's pretty minor to me. (Although we have started to see some level desync issues. People not seeing furnaces that others can see, people not having floors when others see floors, that kind of thing.) It's harder to set up multiplayer than it should be, but once it's working, there are relatively few issues. No random DCs or anything that dumb, on our end.
In a few weeks I expect this game to get a significant coat of feature and MP polish. Then the sky is literally the limit on future content.
For $10, this is game of the year material in my book. I thought Magicka was fresh and a steal at $10, but Terraria blows it out of the water for replayability and overall fun value. There's basically something for everyone in this game: exploring, building, item whoring, exploding masses of guys, as much or as little co-op as you crave, and eventually PvP and SCIENCE!
It'll never reach the depth of simulation that DF or even MC accomplishes...but it's far easier to get into and get sucked in without realizing it.
It delivered alright, straight to the face.