I've heard a number of complaints or disappointments about the fact that this game will be set in the "Terrinoth Universe," and I'm having a hard time understanding what the big deal is. Of course, I'm not familiar with the original, so I don't have a fondness for the original characters and/or story backdrop; however, I just don't see this as being such a big retheme. From what I can tell, the original had as much of a generic fantasy theme as it gets, and regardless of what the characters are named/illustrated/sculpted like, there's still the generic fighter, mage, etc. that explores a dungeon with a dragon and monsters in it.
Also, I cannot see how a retheme will necessarily change gameplay, as the specific fantasy theme isn't important for this type of game. When Runebound came out, the "theme" was described in a few paragraphs at the beginning of the rulebook...there was no deep story-line, and the characters, apart from name and artwork, were mostly a stock fantasy cast.
At worst, I think what we'll get here is something like Drakon, where Descent miniatures ("characters") are used, but the mechanics and gameplay have nothing to do with Terrinoth.
I do feel that this is a somewhat cheesy marketing strategy by FFG to stamp the Terrinoth brand on all their fantasy games as well as "reuse" miniatures without having to reinvent the wheel. But that's business...I don't really fault them for that. Besides, like I mentioned, the Terrinoth setting of this game seems rather loose and I suspect no-one will care when they are actually playing the game.
The one thing I would love to see, however, is that FFG NOT use the same 12 basic heroes in vanilla Runebound over and over and over again. Okay, the cross over with Runebound and Descent seemed reasonable. But honestly, I would have liked to have seen a little more variety in Runewars. And, boy, it will just bite if I see Mordrog and Mad Carthos in this DungeonQuest game! Honestly, though I love the "Terrinoth" games, I have no personal love or fondness for any of these characters! The good news is based on the posted illustrations, this is not going to happen.
My question I would leave with you all (especially those familiar with the original game) is, what exactly is lost by the Terrinoth retheme of DungeonQuest?