I hate the say it... but if you LOVE Metal, you NEED to rent this game. It's got over 100 killer songs to rock out to while your hacking away at all that stand in the way of the metal!

even though this is a simple X & A button masher, then mix it up with different combo's & the upgrade abilities that you purchase along the way let you spec. your weapons to the style of killing you prefer, so VERY cool. also the game utilizes a kind of real time strategy approach to boss battles which gives the game a totally new dimension than hack & slash, plus keeps you from getting bored. I'll let you figure out the details on those type of fights... but a quick overview...
1)you are the commander -get to fly around the field + fight on the ground when you choose-
2.)the stage is your headquarters where your troops spawn when called
3.)you're resources are your fans. the more booths you set up, the more fans you get which are used to build more units.
4.)the rest is strategy & coolness!

the story is GREAT, the voicing & characters is AWESOME, & i can honestly say there was never a dull movement. the only con is of course how quickly the campaign was over. I rented it & am already done. but multiplayer will be my main focus now. you can play upto 8 people on 2 teams. so.... we'll see how that goes =).

RENT THIS GAME!... although for a metal game... there isn't 1 Metallica song... guess the band wanted too much money for their songs as usual. lame.

Admittedly I was not excited about Brutal Legend to begin with. Tim Shafer is a good designer but I feel like he's a little bit like a French film. You're going to get something different but whether you'll like it or not is entirely subjective. I think Brutal Legend follows that.

Whether you like Heavy Metal or not (I'm not a fan but was in jr. high) the humor and art direction will speak to you. After a few hours of playing I was telling a buddy about the game and I realized that everything that went into this game was meant to make you say "Awesome" in a burned out roadie voice.
Exhibit A) Oh I have to do a grinding mission where I kill 10 pigs, is this WoW? Wait they're not pigs, they're Razor Boars and they they're half pig half motorcycle. And I don't hunt them with a sword or axe, I have to round them up while riding on the back of a flaming Trike while playing riffs...Awesome.
Exhibit B) Oh I have to fight the requisite giant spider boss. Wait it's not just a giant spider, it's a huge engine SHAPED like a spider and the only way to hurt it is to bash it's exposed brain with my flaming axe...Awesome.

Ok so the awesomeness aside, the art direction is great, at first glance the game looks like a dark version of every other fantasy game, but then you look closely at the objects and you see that they are all heavy metal...Literally. The trees are made of motorcycle tailpipes or glistening metal Valkyrie wings. Jumps and buildings are made of stage scaffolding and marshal stacks. I saw an interview where they said the art direction was to make every second look like the cover of a heavy metal album...they did.

Now the downside, after about half the game, story missions switch to a kind of front lines action RTS. It's weird and feels like it slows down the fun parts of the game. I found myself putting story missions off as long as possible and then just hoping to get through them so I could explore again. Oh and the voiceovers are a bit repetitive.