Proper answer?
Interesting, valid question...and a truckload full of people who instead of answering to the point, go rambling on and on with "Me personally, I'd rather play blah blah blah blah blah blah". Noone cares. The question was, -why- should you play -Eschalon-. A very simple, straightforward question, no? Yeah.
So, my answer...well, I can't really give you one, because I got side tracked with this little beautiful shiny gem called Weird World (Strange Adventures In Inifinite Space 2)- made by an indie company called Digital Eel *goes to make a thread about it*. However, I can tell you that after I played a little and learned a thing or two about the system, I remade my char, and so far I'm having some pretty fun hackin' n slashin' with him, even though he's still lvl1. I made him a fighte..wait, what is that they say? "A picture is worth a thousand words"?
....
http://img139.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eschalonva6.jpg
(Divination lvl1 for out-of-combat cure spells to save on potions and for Bless, which is probably worth something. . . And fret not, good peoples, Alchemy is definitely going to be picked up soon enough. How do you like this char?.)
So I guess the first part of my answer would be "It's 'fun', or at least has great potential to be a lot of fun...there's actually a lot to be said about simple gameplay, even if that doesn't coincide with most of our favorite games/systems". Hell, look at Magrette...she's build over 12 characters and played the demo over and over (Is your husband a coal miner or something, Magerette? I'll shell out the 25$ if you have like 20 babies or something and can't afford the actual game.).
The second, at least as equally as important reason is... that this is only the beginning, the first part of a 3-part series (as I'm sure you know) and the whole thing looks like a pretty epic experience, not to mention that by the next games we'll be able to choose different races (Infra-red sighted dwarves or an equivalent thereof, anyone?
) and all that jazz, to name one addition to the system.
In conclusion...I know I'm definitely going to keep playing soon enough...hell, any game that lets me crush a Goblin to an instant death by closing a portuculis on his poor ass is worth at least one playthorugh in my book. ;P