Like so many innovative ideas, what makes this game unique is also it's biggest issue.
Die By The Sword tried to come up with something totally knew during the era of many major knew concepts being tried in the computer industry in the late nineties. Instead of the normal, X equals slash, Y equals kick layout, the main control system uses mouse movements to directly control your sword and shield arms. To many things brings on visions of cleverly parrying a blow and whipping your blade around for a dazzling decapitation, but unfortunately as many have found, this simply isn't the case.
The clever system simply tried to hard to give the player complete freedom of movement, and ended up painfully clunky and unwieldy. And what is more unfortunate, it's obvious the creators realized this, as they added a 'classical' arcade type system of one button resulting in a predefined attack.
A middle ground of these two options probably would have worked out well and might have really created a unique play experience, but it simply was not to be.
Graphically the game is decent for it's time, and the 'limb' system for all models that allows dismemberment without actually dying leads to some moments of abject horror or glee, depending on your side, in multiplayer when you are standing there missing your arms with another fighter closing in. Special effects are simple, and sound suffices but does not wow or horrify.
It's a game to play for curiosity, but it is unlikely to hold much attention, no matter how much fun it is playing an ogre and using smaller creatures for batting practice.