Darkest dungeon is a slow descent into madness.  It starts off innocently enough.  A path through the woods to a crumbling hamlet.  A few heroes, a torch, and a dungeon waiting to be explored.  And then dungeon conquered!  We return to a celebratory drink or a prayer at the hamlet.  More heroes show up--wide eyed and ready explore and rebuild the ruined landscape.  And the party embarks for another dungeon, and another, and another.  But soon the voices start.  The dungeons grow darker, the monsters more brutal, and the heroes more mad.  Weeks pass in the game; hours pass in real life.  The dungeon eventually massacres your favorite heroes.  Such brutality cannot go unanswered!  With maddening, obsessive, resolve redoubled the entire hamlet wails, thrashes, and prepares to lash back.  Every waking moment is dedicated to taking the dungeon.  Sanity begins to slip, for both the heroes and the players, and soon the dungeon, it's loot and denizens, are the only thing that matters.  The dungeon occupies every thought until we occupy its halls as our home; having become monsters ourselves.

Darkest Dungeon is a party management roguelike.  Players embark from a home-base hamlet to explore a series of dungeons.  After each dungeon the player returns to a hamlet where they can heal the wounded heroes in the party, upgrade hero skills and equipment, and recruit new heroes.  Heroes belong to one of thirteen classes with more classes under development.  Each class has seven skills but only four can be active at a time.  All skills can be upgraded.  All heroes have a weapon and armour that cannot be swapped but are also upgradeable.  Finally each hero can equip two trinkets that modify their stats; some trinkets can only be equipped by one class.

I've installed and deleted Darkest Dungeon from my computer no fewer than three times.  This is because the game is so good that when I start playing the only way to stop is to remove the game.  This also requires me to wait half an hour to redownload the game whenever I foolishly decide to start playing it again.  This game is a time suck.  Party management is deep, and the dungeons are fun and the hamlet-dungeon rhythm really keeps the player in a "just one more" mindset so that's hard to quit playing.

Darkest Dungeon pulls off Lovecraft Horror as good as any other game or movie.  The game is further flavoured with an Eastern European air in terms of the trappings; from the hamlet, the heroes, and the voice-acting.  The narration and quips are appropriately atmospheric and not usually overdone.  When the player kills a monster with poison the narrator speaks in a seething voice:
"slowly, gently, this is how a life is taken"
And when the player takes a critical hit the narrator exclaims:
"mortality clarified...in a single strike"

The strategy is also fun.  The player can craft different strategies around different parties.  Many effective straightforward party builds exist but the player can also put together more complex parties where heroes depend heavily on particular skills in the party.  Each party has it's own rhythm and critical flaws that become apparent only when trying to apply the build in the dungeon.

...to be continued?