Would you recommend the game at all? The trailer makes it seem like a gacha-style, pay-to-win type of thing.

It's a pure rougelite where you can rerun dungeons to unlock more characters and so on, 0 gacha. Trailer is very old though and the game has been reworked into pure turn-based now from mixed real-time.

Game is still very much in EA where mechanics changes all the time and characters are being reworked from their old day 4-5 cards mixed RTS into full 15 cards turn-based campaign so it is rather lacking in content. The gameplay however is solid so I do recommend it if you're okay with the lack of content atm or just wait a month or two before you get it so there will be more characters (Atm, only 4 is playable, Daddy Deerest here just added today after his rework) and likely more chapters to choose from along with a combat arena mode to just keep on replaying through fights.

One month later I've tried the game, and I'm enjoying it! I look forward to when I can recruit Angorn, the lack of a proper healer off the bat or healing potions is pretty strong.

They're making some changes soon mentioned on discord that are looking very promising.

All character will now be unlocked by default including Daddy Deerest. Stones will be turned into exp pot instead. Also a rework to difficulty to point-distribution type ascension for personal customization with a preset and some other changes to the balance for less oppressive-spongy early game and more challenging late game.

And the map will be reworked to cover the entire continent instead of splitting them into chapter so you can choose how you play your route now instead of just chasing after the recent boss spawn in a half-cleared map.

I like his design, he looks pretty badass

Yup, easily the best one out of the casts atm with no contest.