Darkest Dungeon - Review @ Gamesided

Gamesided reviewed Darkest Dungeon and they say that it's an early GotY contender:

Darkest Dungeon Review - Madness, Our Old Friend

The fickle nature of Steam’s Early Access program overshadows the excellence of some of the titles to grace the service. Games development takes its time to get right, even if parts of a finished product are ready for public consumption. Darkest Dungeon is the best example of the process producing excellence, mixing the goal of a completed project with the responsive evolution, in part, by the way of public criticism. It has helped independent developer Red Hook Studios mold an amazing amalgamation of gothic sensibilities with the deconstruction and demonstration of what it truly means to be a warring “hero.”

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Verdict

Score: 9/10

There’s something that the Darkest Dungeon taps into that isn’t quite replicated. It has a simple art and animation style that projects like a comic infused with gothic sensibilities. It plays like a D&D dungeon-crawling campaign with added house rules to expand upon the base game. It sells itself as a ghost story, hanging onto a narrative drip as you become immersed in a low fantasy horrific world. You feel like a kid who’s stumbled upon the most terrifying choose-your-own-adventure pop-up book but can’t pry away.

Released fewer than three weeks into the new year, Darkest Dungeon has already solidified itself as an early Game of the Year contender.