When comparing Dungeon Defenders II vs Orcs Must Die! Unchained, the Slant community recommends Orcs Must Die! Unchained for most people. In the question“What are the best PC Tower Defense games?” Orcs Must Die! Unchained is ranked 3rd while Dungeon Defenders II is ranked 31st. The most important reason people chose Orcs Must Die! Unchained is:
Most tower defense games follow the same formula – you build a bunch of towers and watch enemies slowly get slaughtered by them. The Orcs Must Die franchise steps away from this by allowing you to jump into action yourself. You can choose one of the many heroes and just slash, shoot, and cast spells at the incoming enemies in a third person view. This creates a really fun experience with hardly any downtime at all.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Visual appeal
Charming characters, vibrant colors, and an art style that is cohesive across all their content.
Pro Free to play
You have access to all levels and difficulties and the 4 starting heros. New heros can either be bought or unlocked by earning defender medals through mission completion and daily quests.
There are hero costumes which can't be earned in game but they are purely visual. The only advantage a paying player can buy is more bag space or extra hero card slots (you get +1 card slot when you unlock a hero with in game currency but can buy more if you want duplicates).
Pro Constantly being improved
There are updates nearly weekly and always new levels and characters being added. The more recent Incursions have also been more of a challenge compared to some of the original content.
Pro A great twist on the tower defense genre
Most tower defense games follow the same formula – you build a bunch of towers and watch enemies slowly get slaughtered by them. The Orcs Must Die franchise steps away from this by allowing you to jump into action yourself. You can choose one of the many heroes and just slash, shoot, and cast spells at the incoming enemies in a third person view. This creates a really fun experience with hardly any downtime at all.
Pro Really fun to plan out trap layouts
This game is all about slaying hordes of orcs and other demihumans. To do that you’ll have to set up many traps, including spike traps, tar pits, massive meat grinders, and many others. Your success depends on how well you plan out the layouts, so it feels really satisfying when you make a great death trap.
Pro Quite funny
It's very surprising how lighthearted it feels despite all the blood and death in it. From its cartoony and colorful designs to heroes cracking jokes in the heat of combat and the nonsense orcs spout at you, this game clearly doesn't take itself too seriously. OMDU somehow makes orcs getting dismembered feel funny.
Cons
Con Everything that was wrong with Dungeon Defenders 1, is also wrong in this version
Bad gear balancing, pay 2 win gear, 1 builder 3 dps, many hackers/cheaters.
Con Still in development (as of 8/25/16)
Each patch often brings as many bugs or balance problems as it does bits of additional content. They are usually worked out but it might turn away players looking for a finished product.
Con No challenge until the highest difficulty
There is a campaign mode but it's far too easy even for brand new players. And after you're done with the campaign, your fastest method of leveling to cap is running the same boss repeatedly on a low difficulty. Why have 8 difficulty levels if you encourage your players to skip half of them through poor balance?
Con Poorly balanced singleplayer
OMDU is primarily designed as a multiplayer game, so you'll have some difficulty when playing alone, especially when just starting out. This is mostly because the enemies have a lot of health, meaning your damage might be too low to take them out on time. There’s also the issue of some levels being quite big, so you might not be able to cover all the paths easily. OMDU is certainly playable on singleplayer but only if you’re up for the challenge.