It's certainly not Dungeon Keeper, but I didn't find it to be a bad game.
 

Apparently you have to make your heroes "happy" and "harvest energy" from them before you're allowed to kill them.

Sounds weak.
 

Apparently you have to make your heroes "happy" and "harvest energy" from them before you're allowed to kill them.

Well, you're allowed to kill them before that but you do don't get much soul energy from that.

It feels like they were trying to implement a way for heroes to really interact with your dungeons. In the old DK you were best off to kill the heroes as fast as possible which in a way wasn't as entertaining. In "regular" games the heroes are supposed to explore the dungeons, find items and gold and such. That's what they're trying to mimic by adding incentives for you to allow them to live for a while and then kill them off. And it kind of works in a way, in my opinion at least. Is it the optimal way? Probably not. But I found it somewhat entertaining at least.

Now what I think spoils the game a bit is all the other objectives you have to fulfill. Farm gold for your boss, or escort slimes to the slime cannon and such. I think that they should have concentrated more on the interaction with heroes instead.
 

It just doesn't feel like the old Dungeon Keeper (2). In Dungeons you're not the evil, badass keeper but rather a babysitter for your minions. Weak remake for sure.

http://trolr.com/retro-spotlight-dungeon-keeper-2/
 

Agreed, the gameplay feels disjointed and arbitrarily hectic. I was actually excited at the beginning of the tutorial hearing the concept of making the heroes happy then draining their soul energy, but the flow of gameplay just isn't there
 

I fell into the same trap Tobold...I think i get what the makers were going for, building a dungeon that is fun to design and fun for the 'heroes', who have specific needs and wants. Initially it is nice to build an elaborate labyrinth leading your 'heroes' to certain death [a triple nest of superior leveled wererats at the end of the circling route will do the trick]. But the game engine only allows you experiment a little bit. Instead it focusses on 'missions' (and annoying side missions which pop up at a steady interval) and some sort of 'story'. If it was just a dungeon builder [which much more options and versatility] i would have liked it more.
 

Count me in as being duped as well. I wanted Dungeon Keeper 3, instead I got some horrible game that demanded I fly around the dungeon doing odd tasks while heroes and champions raped my pets.

Horrible game. Worst buy ever.