Posted August 01, 2017
The actual campaign length (i.e., beating up all the bosses and becoming an absolver) is about 7 hours at a leisurely pace.
The entirety of the available moves can be obtained in about 12 hours, if you hurry, are good at the game and know where to find what and how to bait the NPC into using it against you.
However, this is a crossbreed between a beat'em up and an ARPG, with a dash of Dark Souls for good measure. A beat'em up takes about 30-70 minutes to complete (i.E., beating up all the other characters and the bosses), if you're good at the game. Most ARPGs are also short, and draw their longevity from grind and loot mechanics.
Back when I was younger and far less bitter and cynical, I've poured dozens of hours into various beat'em ups, just faffing around and wailing on the AI. I've never played competitively, I just enjoyed the gameplay. As such, think it's hard to judge the "length" of such games, as they are rarely played for the story.
Same for the ARPG part. Items (costume/armor parts and probably also weapon types) in Absolver are random drops from enemies and loot piles. Someone might be willing to grind countless hours solo to get that "perfect look" or perfect level of balance between protection and weight. I sure as hell wasted hundreds of hours on Diablo and its countless brethren and sequels, so I do understand the appeal.
The core of the game and the crux of the gameplay for Absolver is the fighting mechanics. If those are good (and the beta participants were quite happy with them, it seems), they will encourage beating up NPCs just for the joy of punching them in the face. IIRC they also scale up to a certain degree, so it's unlikely that a solo player would run out of challenging enemies.
And then there's the online part. Which has no chat function (only emotes, and none of those included the one-finger-salute or similar gestures), and besides inserting players randomly into the game world, also has clearly labeled PVP and COOP modes. This should keep the toxicity down to a tolerable level, and of course one needs to remember that the only way to acquire new moves is to get hit by them, but win the actual fight. So, it's best to look at this like it's some old kung-fu movie, where the protagonists need to establish whose style is superior through trial by combat. Nothing personal, just checking to see if the other guy has some new cool moves.
So, in a nutshell: 7 hours to "complete" the game, while one might spend FAR more time playing it, depending on how enjoyable the core fighting mechanics are.
Beta players at least have been positive about how fun the game stays if you play a lot of it, but then that's what you'd expect them to say so I'm still wary. They should really have focused more on showcasing the PVE content and selling the game as a brawler with RPG elements, that also offers you a world to explore and people to meet.
