This is what gets me to finally register…
The gameplay of Demigod is as follows:
There are two teams of players, the Light Army and the Dark Army. Each team has 3-5 players on it, and each player controls one demigod (of which there are currently 8 to choose from. in 10 player maps, there are duplicates). Demigod abilities will be mentioned later. There are several different maps, each with different terrain and geometry, and multiple different play styles.
Here’s an example map (not my screenshot): http://i43.tinypic.com/rlj39g.jpg You can see the hotkeys on the UI, as well as health and mana bars. Note that there are two different bases, and several towers. The towers shoot automatically against opposing players, and the bases provide areas for demigods to buy items (you get gold by killing stuff) and heal. Also, the map is divided up into “Lanes”. You can see two portals just to the left of the giant snake head - every so often, computer-controlled soldiers will come out of those portals, and head down the lanes. They’ll split into two groups, and then re-meet at the top near the enemy base. This map has very few, very close together lanes - other maps have big lanes that are far apart.
So you get your demigod, and are plopped down onto this map where units are constantly streaming into each other, and there are towers. You can kill units for your side, and there are flags that if you stand near them, you’ll slowly capture them. Each flag gives some sort of nice benefit (+15% health, +X gold per second, access to special shops). Whenever you’re near a unit that dies or your capture the flag, you get XP. XP lets you level up, making your demigod stronger, and each level you get a new skill point, which you can spend to buy a new skill or upgrade an existing one (if you meet the minimum level). Skills are pretty basic - the majority of the demigods have 4 active skills, and a couple passive skills. The max level is 20, and you may not even reach that in short maps. In any case, you will have to choose which skills you prefer, and there are a lot of neat choices.
If, during play, your demigod dies, you will revive after a short bit of time (the higher level you are, the longer this time is) back at your base. The demigod(s) who killed you also get a very nice chunk of gold and XP, so dying is (obviously) bad.
If you get gold, there are two things to spend it on. You can spend it on yourself, buying neat items that give you bonuses to mana, health, damage, armor, new spells - all the typical RPG stuff. Or you can spend it on your team, giving boosts to your team or the computer controlled soldiers on the team. Upgrading your XP rate gain, giving you a gold income, increasing the number of soldiers that spawn, giving your buildings regeneration, etc.
There are several different game modes, each with different victory conditions. In one, you need to be the team to first score X number of demigod kills. In another, holding flags gets you points, first team to X points wins. Or each team has X very powerful towers set around the map - first team to destroy all of the opposing team’s towers wins. And finally, the most common - destroy the enemy Citadel, the main building located within their base.
As to how the game actually plays… nothing like a tower defense map, really, and it depends on what hero you’re playing, and what build you use. Think RTS but with one unit, and a lot of tactical choices. You can be a powerful demigod killer who hunts the other demigods down, a hero adapt at pushing through waves of enemies, or healing and supporting other heroes, or protecting the computer minions and using them to overwhelm towers. You need to watch out for enemy demigods killing you (especially if they choose to team up, or get you from behind), pushes against your lanes, capturing of your flags, etc. And if you focus on one thing only, something else is left open - which goes for the enemy too.
I didn’t mention it before, but half of the demigods can summon and control their own units. However, you really don’t use these guys like in a typical RTS - they’re more used to stick to your character as a sort of damage cloud/meat shield. You can send them off individually, sure, but usually they’re more useful if they’re around you.
If anyone is looking for people to play online with, my Impulse name is “Karrius”. I’m not really sure how Impulse works yet, as I haven’t gotten the multiplayer working well.
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