Hunted: The Demon's Forge Preview

GameSpot appears to be the only website offering up a QuakeCon-based preview of Hunted: The Demon's Forge at the moment, during which they dive into ranged and melee combat, as well as "secret" side quests.
Melee combat is pretty straightforward and seems to work best when opened with a few weak attacks ended with a strong attack or two. Most standard wargar can't take a great deal of punishment, though there are larger variants that carry giant tower shields that can soak up a great deal of punishment. Caddoc also carries his own shield, though it can be destroyed if it soaks up enough damage. Fortunately, he can snag a new one from the corpses of his foes, and he can also snatch up fallen enemies' weapons, such as the giant wargar's mace, which isn't as effective against armored opponents, but works great against enemies with shields.

After murdering our enemies in brutal fashion, we encountered a highlighted corpse on which we could use our "deathstone" item--a bauble that lets the heroes speak with the dead, and will open the path to much of the game's secrets and side-quests. In this case, the corpse belonged to a dead wizard entreated us to seek out a curse fireplace, from which we'd find clues about the locations of his scattered bones. Side-quests like these will be completely optional, but will lead to rewards that are far better than those you'll find playing through the game's main story.