Dungeon Siege 3 - On Co-Op Experience

GameSpot's recent Dungeon Siege 3 interview muddied the water on receiving XP for co-op characters with the article creating the impression you wouldn't receive XP. Destructoid has followed this up and it turns out to be simple - you do get XP, with a dedicated MP character:

"Dungeon Siege III’s cooperative multiplayer mode is designed to be easily accessible and allow for a drop-in, drop-out multiplayer structure," explained associate producer Nathan Davis. "To bring this vision to fruition while maintaining both the deep story-based experience of the game and the balance of characters versus enemies, your single player characters will be distinct from your multiplayer characters — however both can be persistently grown, equipped and adventured with over multiple game sessions.
"Co-op players can absolutely expect to have the loot and experience they gain in multiplayer games to be saved to their multiplayer characters … Achievements and Trophies earned in multiplayer are still saved to your profile as normal and there are additional awards that you can only receive from playing in a multiplayer co-operative game."

More information.

Makes sense. If I recall correctly, it works like that in most hack'n slash games.

It certainly wouldn't work well without that happening.