Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is basically God of War but in a gothic horror setting.  I'm tempted to end the blog post right there, because that's pretty much all you need to know to decide whether or not you'll want to play it.  It's pretty blatant.  You even get health from objects that glow the same shade of green.  Though to be honest, the demo was short enough that I don't know what they'll do to vary the gameplay, if anything, as there were no puzzles or boss battles in the segment I played.  It could end up being a great deal shallower than God of War.  

It started out with taking on groups of werewolves, which serve as the cannon fodder of the game, and escalated to fighting larger wolflife monsters that take more hits and need to be dodged and avoided.  I found blocking and dodging a little tricky, because blocking happens when you hold the left trigger and stand still and dodging happens when you hold the left trigger and push a direction on the analog stick.  I often wanted to block but because I had just been moving I would dodge instead.  There's another segment where you're riding a horse at full speed, and have to fight off other enemies also on horseback, but I kept getting knocked off and having to fight them on foot.  There are these circles that pop-up, and you're supposed to push a button when the larger circle shrinks to be the same size as the smaller one, and I couldn't get the timing quite right on it with the few attempts I had.

I can't say it left a significant impression on me gameplay-wise, but I really enjoyed the aesthetic, and would be all over playing a gothic horror God of War if they polish it up and add some variety.

If you have any questions, comment and I will try to answer.