I've never played DR before, but after having played Case Zero I'm considering trying DR.  But I thought Case Zero was good because it's so short that running it multiple times isn't a chore.  If the base 3 days in DR takes 10 hours, I think I'm a lot less likely to be on board with it.  So how long is the base play, I don't count dying and restarting, I mean, "if you just let the game clock run, how much real time is that"?

If you get the über weapons in the game you could probably beat it in 18 to 20 hours.

Well, 12 hours in Dead Rising is 1 hour of real time. About 6 hours for 72hr mode if you just sit around doing nothing. But cutscenes and loading doesn't take away time as far as I know.

If you are playing from the beginning and not restarting to keep your level or anything, then it should be six hours plus cutscenes. 1 game day = 2 hours in real life. Overtime mode would tack, at most, 2 more hours onto that.

Looks like i'm remembering this game wrong, if people have completed it in 6-7 hours. Maybe i was playing the free time mode or whatever the hell it was called.

It's long, but good. It's basically a game of survival and it makes you work for it a lot of the time. The cult day is the weakest but it's still decent.