Suffers in the darkness early on, but a strong story and beautiful soundtrack make this game find the light.
The story in Nier is about a 40 year old man called Nier (or whatever name you want to give him, Legend of Zelda style) who is trying to save his daughter from a disease known as the black scrawl, which is told even better than the story in Final Fantasy XIII (sorry! I had to admit it). The 4 different endings do the story even more justice.
Some of the characters are interesting, mainly potty mouthed lady-boy Kaine, and Alan Rickman sound alike Grimwoire Weiss, who provide the dark humour through their arguments. However, the lead character, the 40 year old Nier (or whatever name is given) is too simple and doesn't really have any interesting backstory whatsoever, but the worst thing about him is how ugly he looks (I can't even begin to explain how serious an issue it is in the history of lead characters).
The soundtrack in Nier is beautiful, there are times when you will want to stay in an area just to listen to a certain song being played over and over again. The soundtrack so beautiful that it deserves to be in the top 100 video game soundtracks of all time, trust me.
The combat is very simple hack-and-slash with the odd dose of very interesting magic spells to use. Sadly, the combat is too easy and doesn't even begin to stand up to the likes of Demon's Souls.
Most of the puzzles require block pushing, with the exception of the Barren Temple, in which the puzzles are more challenging by making you start again if you 1. get hit, or 2. perform an action that you are not supposed to do, such as attacking with weapons or jumping.
Altogether though, Nier is a jack of all trades, master of none. Instead of excelling at one gameplay type, Nier uses a variety. For example, one minute you could be beating up enemies Devil May Cry style, next it will be a 2D platformer Mario style, then a birds eye view shooter such as Ikaruga. This actually works in Nier's favor, despite the lack of innovation.
If there is one thing that might push your buttons more than Demons's Souls, it will be fetch quests, too many fetch quests, all begging to be done just to earn money and... NO XP?! Ouch...
The graphics look nice, but don't compete whatsoever with last gen classics such as Final Fantasy X or even Final Fantasy XII, and Nier is on a next gen console?! How humiliating it must be for PS3 and Xbox 360...
To sum up, Nier is really worth renting/borrowing from a friend to see if it is your cup of tea, and if it is then wait until it hits the sales and gets reduced to a £20 price tag (I did).