As someone who spends just a few hours per week playing games, I enjoyed the demo for this game. It didn't seem like a travesty once the minimap, quest indicators, and sparkly arrows over people's heads were turned off, for sure, and combat/gameplay with a 360 controller felt a lot visceral and rewarding than hitting a pre-planned sequence of number keys.
We don't see that too often on the PC anymore, at least not when you rule out console ports. Sure, the voice acting is a bit awkward and the customization options are underwhelming, but at least it lets you swing around big glowing hammers. I'd prefer it if you could simply punch and kick giant monsters to death, but this is fun too.
That being said, I'm downloading the Risen demo to see what all the fuss is about.
