I played the demo twice a few months ago. Here's my opinion:
Liquid Entertainment made a highly original RTS back then before Warcraft III. I am talking about Battle Realms: a very fun strategy game set in an oriental fantasy setting. Unfortunately for Liquid, Blizzard's highly-awaited RTS came out the same year and sold like mineral water in the desert, quite unlike BR. The creators of Battle Realms seemed to take that personally and their next game, War of the Ring, was basically a repainted Warcraft clone. Same can be said about Dragonshard. Although it is set in the awesome Eberron D&D campaign (a steampunkish, grittier world than the classic Forgotten Realms), that's all there's awesome about it. It's not quite RTS and not quite RPG: a bstrd child of those genres, if you excuse my language. It's quite fun, but judging from the demo, ridiculously easy and based on getting from point A to point B. There are sidequests but the whole game plays like the Orc levels of Frozen Throne with limited base-building. I'd skip that.
