Before I purchase this I am interested in seeing comments not only about the game overall but about its length.

If it is only 20-40 hours to complete including side quests, then either that does not include reading the apparently huge amount of text, the game is super-short other than reading the text, or reviewers are super-speedy readers (or skip reading much of it most likely).

As predicted, watch this blow Pillars and Tranny clear out of the water. Even though I won't play it before the DC hits the shelves (which could mean up to two years).

I find that hard to believe. Why put that SJW simulator in the same sentence as this?

It have same horrible writing as Tyranny?

Based on some of the recent "best of" lists I read in the new year, I started playing Age of Decadence, and I am really loving it. Definitely a missed gem for me, which I'm glad I found. Some of the comments here remind me of Age of Decadence - lots of text, not all about combat, etc. Perhaps Torment is like Age of Decadence but with more polish? If so I'm sure I will love it.

It is way less hardcore than AoD from what I read.

I played it for a short time this morning, made a character, and got to the first area screen. My very early impressions are that it has a good interface and atmosphere, and is intriguing. I like the ambience in the game, the science fiction combined with fantasy feeling is very well realized. The interface shows a lot of polish, is well designed, and everything seems clearly labeled and user friendly, with good "information boxes" explaining things to the player. That is very important in a game like this, and it looks like they got the interface right. It also looks very pretty, and has eye pleasing little details and effects.

Regarding game play, it seems to be a "reader" for sure, where there is a lot of text. But in my brief time playing, the writing seems good, and that makes the reading much more bearable. Hopefully the writing will remain at a high level for the whole game. (note, I'm not saying it is Lord of the Rings , lol, just that for computer game writing, it is better than usual)

One thing that is a slight irritation that I noticed, the very first companions/party members have the annoying cliche where they are always arguing…to me, I don't like or want two party members who argue with each other constantly, that is a tiring shtick (its meant to be humorous in the game, I think) Of course that can be fixed by dropping one of them and replacing them with another party member further on in the game.

Overall, I would say my very early impressions are highly favorable, and I'm looking forward to exploring the game!

It is that length (30 hours) to cover everything. Content is frontloaded, story collapses around the middle.

Only played the very first stuff yet (just got my first companions).

For my taste the story is too crazy and abstract. Also the amount of text is…well, insane.
As I am reading out everythig for my videos I basically do nothing but reading and my throat already feels sore after just 2 hours of gameplay aka reading.

That said, I am playing in German. While the translation itself is ok, the amount of errors is very high. Missing letters, missing words, some wrong grammar, some extra words.
I didn't count, but I'd guess that in the 2 hours I played I encountered maybe 15 to 30 errors.

Edit: Played another hour. Maybe another 5 typos (German). But also every interaction is quite fun as you have multiple options.

I like the sound of this from PCGamer: "this is science fantasy done in the psychedelic pastel shades of a 70s paperback."

Got my key this morning and I'll be checking this one out after I finish Shadow of Adam.

Despite my rather large backlog, I haven't been playing too much lately but I was very much awaiting the release of this game and I really want to play this one. I have deliberately not been following its development in order to avoid any spoilers and to maximise my experience. I even want to avoid reading reviews. So I have little idea of what to expect but as long as "weird" and "crazy" stuff is thrown at me I'll be more than happy :).

I have just started downloading it from GOG but I am not sure whether I should stick to my own rule of not playing any game before it is sufficiently patched.

Does anyone know from reviews or from the beta testing phase to what extent it is buggy and whether it is in a playable state?

Well with the Amazon cloud outages this AM, my download was fraught with delays, on Steam, but it's installed and working now. And yes, if the bugs are bad maybe I will wait for at least the first patch. How is it going?

I have played 6 hours without any issue. I am on PC however.

Ok, thanks. Just in case, I think I'll wait a few days and if I see no general complaints then I'll take the plunge :).

Busy downloading it now :)

I had it freeze in my first tutorial crisis but it worked well after that.

Been playing the game for a few hours. As of right now I find the game to be very text heavy with little combat. For now I've taken a short break to play more later.

One thing I do like is the tide mechanic, and how stat points are used in/out of combat.

The complaints I am seeing so far: buggy on consoles, lots and lots of text, and little combat. It has always been advertised as a text heavy and combat light/optional game, so I'm not sure why anyone would expect anything else. This definitely sounds like a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, which is my favorite RPG of all time :)

Well I as just stating my experience with the game.:)

As I knew what to expect but it's definitely a game you won't be playing for more then a few hours. I'm not kidding as my eyes are sore right now due to excessive text reading.

Hmmm, only $45 so a shorter playing time isn't such a big deal. If this were a $60 game for 30 hours… ouch.