Games like Massive Chalice live or die on the emergent narratives they create, which makes designing death as an inevitability for your cast of heroes an admirable risk. They're trusting that, as the wheel of time turns, players will glimpse a larger shape coming into view. The stories that stand out are family epics, like the Buendias of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. By following the tangled paths of lineage, we're left with tales too large to be understood in terms of the lone hero.
Playing Guild of Dungeoneering is probably better than playing Dungeons and Dragons by yourself, but I suspect that playing D&D with other people is better still. The interplay of Dungeon Master and player is controlled chaos, thrilling in its unpredictability, while the outcome of Guild of Dungeoneering is a foregone conclusion: I will throw a neverending horde of adventurers at a dungeon until I complete it or get bored and wander away.
The titular vermin of Vermintide may come in a horde, but they're all unique, in their weird, chittering way. It almost makes me feel bad about the carnage I've spent the last ten hours dealing out to them. Then again, there will always be more.
The Total War formula mostly acts as a functional framework on which to construct the violent, mystical world of Game Workshop's Warhammer. This is the most dramatic departure Creative Assembly has taken from their typical playbook with the series, and it needed to be; a game about a warring fantasy kingdom must feel different than one about the rise of the Roman empire. For the most part, it does.