Krater (top-down 3-man squad) action-rpg

[Blackjack]

Got this offer from IGN Prime (Fileplanet) to help test this European-devved game. They mentioned having a pre-alpha build up on Steam in mid-February but I don't see anything there. It's by Swedish dev Fatshark, whose previous efforts (fwiw) included Bionic Commando 2: Rearmed and the Wild West shooter Lead and Gold.

Krater
http://www.kratergame.com/about-krater/the-game

CORE MECHANICS
    Extensive crafting (craft unique abilities, weapons and items)
    Character persistence where both injuries and experience work in conjunction to evolve your team over time.
    Simultaneously control a squad of 3 characters chosen from 4 different main classes with a multitude of specializations.
    Prepare your team of Freediggers for the end-game and try to get as deep as you can into the main shaft, a dungeon crawler of massive proportions.
    Singleplayer/multiplayer which blend seamless with each other. Use your progress from the single player campaign in coop missions and the other way around.

BASIC GAME CONCEPT
It combines the combat mechanics of action-rpgs with the top-down tactics of the classic old-school games such as Syndicate and X-Com. The rich world opens up for the players via exploration of the immense world map.

Extensive crafting (craft unique abilities, weapons and items) and character persistence where both injuries and experience work in conjunction are key elements to evolve your team over time and get ready to enter into the end-game.

THE WORLD AND ITS INHABITANTS
krater_art_1 Krater takes place in a lush post-apocalyptic game world, a gigantic impact crater where cities and even nations have has been built on the aftermath of a bomb. It is a colorful game experience, where genre-typical deserts are replaced by nordic pine forests and red wooden cottages.

And some videos here:
http://www.kratergame.com/media/videos

There is some co-op play, and apparently it's meant to be fairly seamless in terms of your co-op progress adding to your single player progress, and vice versa, something like that.

Haven't tried yet. If it's crappy, this could be a short-lived thread.  It just piqued my curiosity.

[EddieA]

You can preorder the collector's edition now for around $13.

[CeeKay]

did anyone actually grab this?  I was reading this snapshot review of the game and it was enough to kick it to my wishlist for Steam's Summer Sale.

[Mithridates]

It looks pretty good to me, but the reviews on Metacritic were pretty harsh.  I'll probably grab it some day for $3 or something like that.

[EngineNo9]

I believe they mentioned it was intended to be a constantly-updated alpha/beta game similar to how Minecraft was released, so I think the first reviews were perhaps a bit harsh (though likely accurate for that first build).  The more recent reviews seem much better.

From what I've heard they have been making constant near weekly improvements as expected.  Actually, you can see the update history here.