Anybody tried Darkest Night?

Can't find anything on this site about Darkest Night. I don't think Barnes has reviewed it. Found a Tom Chick review (who likes it).

Thing is VPG are selling this with 3 expansions for $77. So is it worth it?

I was not at all impressed with the base game.

Here are my comments from BGG:

There's no reason for me to ever play this game again, since other co-ops do the same thing better. If you want quality storytelling, flavor text, and mechanics, Eldritch Horror is the clear favorite. If you're fond of die-rolling fantasy adventure, the Wizards of the Coast D&D line (Ravenloft, Ashardalon, Drizzt) is hands down the better option, with significantly higher-quality components. And for the same price.

One problem is that Darker Night's generic gameplay won't vary from session to session, particularly with respect to key searching and the endgame. Eldritch Horror and the D&D line have variable scenarios/villains that maintain player interest across games, which means that those two titles have a much longer shelf life. As in, you'll want to play them more than once.

It's also unclear how Darkest Night earned the label "Euro Game #9", unless one's definition of a Eurogame is "not a wargame". No other gaming company would agree with such a categorization, but I guess VPG is striking out into the professional world with an air of blind non-conformity. More power to them, I guess, in sticking it to The Man through casual wordplay.

And let's talk about the phrase that appears on 50% of all Darkest Night event cards: roll one die and take the highest. I don't care that a handful of dice-adding modifiers convinced the publisher to subject humanity to this semantic freakshow, and I'll apologize in advance for my culturally insensitive response, but the mere existence of such a phrase is f*cking retarded.

In the past, when a Hasbro employee introduced similar wording into one of their game components, the executive board would exact punishment on the transgressor by having his wife professionally seduced, after which they'd paint him white and drop him off at a Black Panther rally for a proper beating. At Victory Point games, on the other hand, a similar "language pioneer" likely gets promoted to Senior Editor.

At this point in their business trajectory I'd recommend that VPG revisits their mission statement so that their products become less retarded rather than more retarded, which will surely benefit them in the long run.