Well well, fun times ahead. 
I bought the game after watching the quick look and had fun playing it  about 5h.
 
Then I got my spoon into some (dungeon crawl) stone soup, I wanted to try something more challenging. 
It's somewhat graphic interface was less scary than the pure ascii ones. 
 
Then I got reminded about Dwarf Fortress, something that i have bumped into occasionally in teh internets.
So, I braced myself and after lookin couple hours of tutorials, I gave it a try.
 
After my first attempt (apparantly dwarfes can't drink from frozen lake) I'm havin more and more fun.
 
so thanks, for itroductin me to a game of fun.

I had a similar experience; it's almost like that was the developer's plan all along.

I really love Dungeons of Dredmor and have clocked almost 10 hours so far. Its my first rougelike i have played for that long, sadly i just can't get into those primitive looking classics like Dwarf Fortress, i just can't stand looking at it for long.

Hours of tutorials, that's the only way to understand how to play Dwarf Fortress. After all that and many, many hours of play I still don't have clear understanding of everything in that game... Still one of my favorite games of all time. Not sure if your playing with ASCII or not but there are tilesets you can use like Mayday's.

I bought Dredmor, but I didn't really care for it. The turns go by to slowly with animation priority and the controls are somewhat lacking.

Dave went straight to playing Tales of Maj'Eyal after Dredmor. I gave it a shot last week and man, it's an amazing roguelike. Lost my level 26 Cornac Fighter last night due to a pack of blood mages. I regretted charging at them half way through, but then it was too late to hide behind cover.

I'm currently playing dwarf fortress with Lazy Newb Pack at home (it come's with four different tilesets) and the ASCII at work. 
 
there was this good argument somewhere in teh internets about ASCII, that it makes playing the game like reading a book, you have to imagine the setting in your head. 
that's why ASCII at work, but generally tileset makes playing easier at beginning.  
 
@pornstorestiffi give the lazy newb pack a try, there's a good tutorial in youtube for that.

I'm currently playing dwarf fortress with Lazy Newb Pack at home (it come's with four different tilesets) and the ASCII at work.  there was this good argument somewhere in teh internets about ASCII, that it makes playing the game like reading a book, you have to imagine the setting in your head. that's why ASCII at work, but generally tileset makes playing easier at beginning.   @pornstorestiffi give the lazy newb pack a try, there's a good tutorial in youtube for that.

I take always take every opportunity I can get to plug Dwarf Fortress on here.  I'm not sure about some of the newer tutorials, but The series I learned from was by a guy named CptnDuck i believe. 
 
If you can stick with it to learn the basics, you will literally be amazed at what cause and effects can happen in the game.  I started playing it a few years ago off and on, and I still am floored by some of the stuff that happens.   
 
For a hilariously epic (and long) read about what can happen, check out the BoatMurdered saga.   

Everyone that makes a big deal about the difficulty and inaccessibility of Dwarf Fortress and ascii roguelikes are sorely mistaken. I used to be like that, years ago (humorous given the graphics of the time) but then I played them. Dwarf Fortress isn't that hard. There are plenty of good tutorials, keep the wiki open for any hard spots, and go at it. Your first fortress will die horribly, but that's OK, that's Dwarf Fortress. By the second one you'll probably have your shit figured, and be building complex serieses of tunnels, archer towers, massive underground farms, moats, seige engines, and badass champion dwarves gibbing entire armies of gobs like nobody's business. 
 
Also Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is my favorite roguelike too (download here). I suggest you run the tutorial (it has a quite reasonable one) in ascii just so you know what underlies the game, but there is no shame in using the tileset. I eventually became adapted to it myself, due to the handy map and inventory accessibility. Still, I use the keyboard almost exclusively to play, and suggest you learn to play that way as well. It's funny, every time I go back to it after having not played for a couple months, I think "man those key setups are weird, and I haven't played any roguelikes in a while. Might be hard." But then I put my fingers on the keyboard and everything just HAPPENS. Muscle memory is awesome. If you're just starting out, easy character builds tend to be the beefy ones. Minotaur Berserkers, Fighters, etc. Avoid ogres, they're bad at everything. Hardmode pretty much. Wanderer is pretty much the "random skills" profession, so that too is pretty much a hardmode option. For casters, the easiest are probably Crusader (merman is the best for that) and Summoner. FUN AND CRAZY combos are more like Hill Orc Priest of Beogh (you get an orc posse), and Chaos Knight of Xom (oh lordy).