Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

So Kingdoms of Amalur is the next big thing, and I have to say for good reason. They managed to snag R.A. Salvatore for creative director and Todd McFarlane for art director, and the whole thing looks and reads great. They managed an interesting twist on "you're the chosen one" by (spoilers) making you the result of a resurrection experiment that happens to work on you, and gets destroyed before they can figure out why yours worked.

The most interesting bit of worldbuilding is the Fae and the Ballads that rule their actions - they follow the Ballads, stories, over and over because death and so forth aren't a big deal to them. They get reincarnated/healed/etc with no issues so they don't care. And mortals are bound by fate, so in a very real sense there's nobody other than the player that has free will, even in the context of the universe. It's kind of a clever metacommentary.

The actual gameplay is quite streamlined, and the skills support hybridization in an interesting way by explicitly boosting the playstyle of a hybrid in the choices you make, as opposed to the usual underpowered dilution or overpowered synergy that happens in other games.

Overall I'm really impressed with how well put together it is. I hear it's a prelude to an MMO. I'd totally play an MMO based on this IP if they made it play as well as KOA:Reckoning.