It seems to be a fun game so I might try it out. Btw, here's the IGN review:

http://wii.ign.com/articles/100/1006193p1.html

Closing comments from the review:

My Life as a Dark Lord uses the charm of the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles universe to create a unique tower defense game. It's always nice to play the bad guy for a change, and it's satisfying every time one of those goody two-shoes heroes gets their ass knocked out of your tower. The limitations of WiiWare are apparent, but Square Enix has delivered one of the most polished titles on the platform. This is an intricate strategy game chock full of different monsters, traps, and items to use in your battle plan. Download it now so you can finish the campaign before new levels are made available as DLC early next month.

I've heard the game doesn't have much replay value. Plants Vs. Zombies is a better tower defense game with crazy replay value, and it's the same price or less on Steam.

However, if you don't have a PC or really like FF, this may be a good deal.

So...do people who've played it recommend it or not? It seems like most lean towards not.

This game is sooo addicting :)
I'm having a blast between LKS and MLaaDL

I don't know about consensus but, IMO, it's not even in the same universe as MLAAK. As I noted above, it is fun, at first, but it's too much of a good thing, in the end. (It doesn't help that half the game is stupidly easy, either, assuming you buy even a little bit of the DLC.)

^^The game is NOT stupidly easy...lol
I say it's pretty challenging. I feel like buying items from the dlc is cheating!!!
I'll just buy new levels or costumes (maybe floors and monsters) when they are available. If you play the main game, you can't say that the game is stupidly easy. It gets tough the farther you play, but you can usually beat a level after a few attemps.

so, the game can be played just fine without any dlc, i presume hyperion?

i did eventually buy a little dlc for mlaak, but that was after i already beat the game once. does this game have any harder modes once you beat it, like mlaak did?

I think the game should be played without any dlc your first time.
I haven't beaten the game yet, so I don't know if anything is unlockble. It seems to be a pretty lengthy game and totally worth the money :)
SE does charge a lot for the entire dlc. But I can't understand why anyone would want to buy it all. Items only make the game easier (so don't buy them your first time) and costumes are unecessary.
Only thing worth buying are the levels and monsters. I've been waiting 2 weeks and nothing new yet D: