Graphics aside, we're told that D&D: Tactics will introduce a bunch of cool flourishes not often seen in turn-based strategy. One option, for example, lets you set all your characters to "Ready," poising them to automatically attack the first thing that hovers into view. You can then send an animal or monster into the darkness, get something to attack it, and then lead it down into the trap you've cleverly set.
Also, should one of your party members then get into trouble, there's a spell that'll let you teleport him four rounds into the future - which sounds useless until you consider that other, stronger teammates can whittle down whatever's killing him until he comes back. And if the going gets really tough, you'll even have polymorph spells at your disposal, enabling you to do stuff like turn a quivering, pigeon-chested wizard into a giant, ass-smashing demon. So that ought to be fun.
In addition to the main storyline - which will explore a huge number of environments and take around 49-100 hours to finish, depending on whether you charge straight through - there'll be downloadable content and a six-player ad-hoc "Dungeon Bash" mode set in randomly generated dungeons. Assuming the game continues to improve as dramatically as we've seen so far, this should be a hot item when it ships to stores in February.
