I'll give you my impression of the game as what it's supposed to be; a widely played game in most fantasy D&D settings. I've bought a deck and tried a few test games with friends. Overall I think it's an entertaining game to play and gamble with. I didn't have the feeling however that I was playing a game that my PC would be likely to encounter in a roadside tavern which I believe was the intention of the game's designer. What I mean is, it seems too complicated a card game for commoners in a fantasy setting to play regularly. It's seems more like a modern CCG (with each card having its own paragraph of special rules written at the bottom) rather than a simple card game which any commoner could easily remember all the rules to.
It also doesn't really look like a game prop either; if a PC pulled this deck out of his backpack it would look out of place in a D&D inn. I'd imagine the craftsman/artist who would hand paint these cards in a D&D setting wouldn't be able to scribe a tiny paragraph of special rules at the bottom of each card. Cheap decks probably wouldn't have the rules written on them at all, counting on the players to simply know the relevant rules from having played the game before. Conveniently scribed rulebooks would also be unlikely to exist I'd imagine. That of course would lead to different rules being used in various communities which would cause a lot of confusion and heated arguments when travelers tried playing the game in neighbouring towns.
The rules to play the game are fairly solid, though like any game with so many added on rules (like every CCG) there are situations that leave you scratching your head. I'd imagine that such situations would often lead to bar brawls as each PC or NPC interprets the rules differently. The rules for actually winning the game also left me a bit puzzled. For instance, everyone starts the game with a "hoard" of 50 gp. The game progresses with each player winning or loosing hands and his "hoard" either increasing or decreasing. Play ends when one player has lost all his money and the player with the largest hoard is declared the winner. What isn't clear is what being the winner means; does each player get to keep his winnings or does the winner get all of the players' hoards? Again, I'd expect a bar brawl to be the result of playing this game in an unfamiliar inn.
The interesting thing about the game is that the flow of the game can shift quickly and unexpectedly with the right cards in hand. Hoards can increase and decrease unexpectedly. I did find however that if playing the game as written could take a good while since it seems hard to make another player loose his entire hoard, thereby ending the game. I'd imagine the game would make more sense if it were played like poker, with individual hands being played in turn and the game ending whenever the players are simply willing to stop playing, with each player keeping his own winnings.
