On its surface Demonrock: War of Ages's isometric fantasy combat seems to ape classic dungeon crawlers like Diablo. Delve a little deeper, however, and you'll soon realise that this reverse tower defense game is far less broad in its scope.

You are given a choice of four fighters. Two of these characters are unlocked, with the others available though IAP. Choosing which character to start with dramatically affects your experience – so making this initial selection essentially blind is a little frustrating.

The basic gameplay has a lot in common with a MOBA. You lead your character and a summonable army to battle against enemy strongholds. Tapping around the screen will see your character scurry to the desired location, attacking where appropriate, while additional powers and troops can be accessed through onscreen buttons.

Controls is responsive and intuitive, but this did little to stop us feeling detached from the battlefield. With a single route through each of the game's four environments, direct control of our warrior could just have easily been substituted for a forward and reverse button, allowing us to follow the same linear path through levels as our army.

Many of Demonrock's issues spring from its single path arenas. Though there are some basic cosmetic differences, none of the game's four arena designs offer enough variation to prove tactically interesting.

Though there are dozens of enemy types, their predictably means the add little spice to the levels. In fact, the only real challenge was making sure that we had levelled up all of our equipment, and to stay awake long enough to use special abilities.

These are all issues that MOBAs - a genre that Demonrock borrows heavily from - hide through their multiplayer nature. Here, laid bare against a computer-controlled army with no human counterbalance, it proves simplistic and bland.

Demonrock: War of Ages is a good starting point for a larger experience. If multiplayer was an option - or if the maps were more varied and complex - then its intuitive controls and more complex mechanics may have drawn us in. As it stands, they are simply the trim on a pair of +2 Boots of Mediocrity.