They have a few cheap games on there that I am considering buying... plus some game called Abuse which looks suspiciously like Metroid for free (which is always good). Will I get screwed over or get a virus from downloading something from there site?

I havent used the site myself but Ive heard good thing about it, if your concerned your antivirus should pick anything up anyway.

No risk of viruses they are a legit site.

I bought some games from them, I had an issue with one (the download link wasn't working), but I wrote to the support and they promptly corrected the issue.

The game are packaged as big exe files, no client, no DRM.

No, you won't get a virus, :D.

Hell, dotemu is even kind of a publisher here at GOG. :D

Oh, and in fact, few of the GOG-released games still have some old files with references to DotEmu. Why the hell these weren't removed is beyond me...

(damn, sometimes I really sound like a GOG hater, but seriously, they need to get serious and fix the damn problems)

DotEmu actually own the rights of some games sold on GoG. (Raptor for example)

The site's fine and is run as a legitimate business. Abuse however is just a shareware version. They neglect to mention that. But other than that I'm not aware of any problems.

The shareware version? Is it still legal?

It's basically a demo. Unto itself it's legal. But I'm not clear on how DotEmu wound up hosting it. After all if they had a deal with the IP holder wouldn't they have the full game on the site (free or otherwise)? But all their other games definitely have the IP holder's consent. So it's a bit of an oddity that.

Uhm, I'm a little confused here. Your antivirus "caught" a game trying to install a DLL file? Why is that considered "suspicious activity"? A quick search of my Crysis folder reveals no less than 53 DLL files. If you don't want (or won't be allowed by your antivirus) to play games that use DLL files, I suspect you won't play much of anything, ever.

DotEmu is as safe as GOG. Unless you just have something against the French.

Woah your anti-virus has empathy? :)

I've bought a couple games (and got a few for free) from DotEmu. They are ok but the site looks, let's say, confused and amateurish compared to GOG. They are still in the process of figuring out the business model. That said, they have a few items on their list that are not available anywhere else. Sometimes they get stuff before everybody else -- like Motoracer and Broken Sword DC. Unlike GOG, they never have any cool extras with game but they usually have manuals packed with games somewhere. Their release information is lacking too. But if you can live with that and you need something there, they are fine.

It said it was a potentially dangerous DLL file or some shit like that... If it really is or not is a completely different story.

But it is free Of course not!