As a long time Duke addict, the short story is:
Epic fail. The longer story, no spoilers (though there wouldn't be much to spoil . . . )
Those that have followed Duke do so because of the game play - hidden compartments, lots of hidey-holes, things to discover, you could wander around and collect weapons, play one level a hundred times and find something new each time - all this is gone in DNF in the interest of latest and greatest gaming trends - flashy graphics and tired Duke-isms.
Another thing Duke fans will hate, all the keyboard navigation has changed. Duke looks pretty stupid standing by a door jumping when he should be opening the door (spacebar, which used to be open/pick up objects etc., is now the E key.)
Free wandering is limited. For example, in the old game you could jump on anything - a wall, a pool table, kick the pool balls around and into the pockets - this is how you discovered hidden items. DNF doesn't allow you to do any of that, limiting the fun of level exploration.
Even the review Tangor posted is rift with "things that don't matter to a true Duke Fan:"
Long loading times, low-res textures and polygon counts, poor facial animations and lip-syncing, screen tearing, juddering frame rates, basic lighting and reflections, pop-up, jaggies and disappearing assets – you name it, DNF suffers from it. Every gaming advancement of the past thirteen years is undone; every conceivable design flaw evident.
... So it's easy to see why it went this way. Who cares? That's not what DN is about. It's about the game.
Look, people, we like the babes. We like the blood splats, the macho phrases, but these are embellishments. This version focuses so heavily on the embellishments that it completely loses the character of the game. The graphics are beautiful, but it's just that - a bunch of pretty graphics and big boobs. Good for a few hah-ha's but where's the beef, the game? Pfft . . .
My personal experience went as follows.
Bought PC version. $50.
Wouldn't run, my card did not support pixel shading. (not in the requirements. Everyone's a gamer, everyone has the latest cards . . . didn't you know that?)
Bought new dual head card. $50.
Game runs, but keyboard support only, though it's whispered (and I do mean whispered) that the game has Joystick support. In going to the forums and what not, reading through smug kiddie gamer posts ("Who uses a joystick any more?") I found no support for anything but an Xbox controller. And that's another thing - there are ZERO support documents out there for this game. There's an FAQ composed of six questions and answers, that's it. You can't tweak the .ini's like the old game, there are almost no worthy settings in the game interface. The only hack, so far, is a way to insert a console that was in the demo to input commands during game play. You can't tweak the settings to allow other hardware devices or configure your keyboard. This was another cool thing about the original, not only could you tweak all of the inputs, you could build your own worlds (maps) with the program BUILD that came with DN3D. Gone.
Bought XBox controller - $60. OK so now the game plays, it's at least navigable, but by this point, I'm losing interest fast.
There's a lot to explore, but they really missed the point on this one, it's like all those clients out there who don't care about the important stuff on a web site, only that it "looks good." Yeah DNF "looks good," it looks GREAT in fact, and there's some cool things you can do (like drive an RC nitro truck to solve a puzzle.) But that's all it is - a slick series of stupid puzzles, the game itself is completely gone.
Ah well. At least I can use my xBox controller to play the old Duke through the GOG wrapper, and I really love my new Graphics card, I needed one anyway.
