So I've got about 30 hours into this now, I play pretty casually but the more I look, the more I find.
There was an AMA yesterday and I'm paraphrasing but I think the developer hit it right on the head when he said: "People don't like this game because of the nostalgia, they like it because they don't know WTF they're doing and they find out piece by piece that there's a rather complex layer of systems to unravel."
This game does not handhold you at all but it's not punishing either. You even gain exp for dying (in new ways, not repeat deaths) and there are rewards attached to death exp. If you die you don't lose items, there is no equip degradation, you get ported to the start of the dungeon or back to town.