[quote name='CaoPi']How is the story/combat system in this game? The reviews do seem to be lacking, is it even worth $30?[/QUOTE]
Best is to read the wiki entry for this game as it explains it quite well, but quickly it's really a nitch game for Otaku, so you cannot be just an RPG fan as you probably won't like it. It's a visual novel game first and then an RPG second. It's a lot like Disgaea series where they have a cute and silly story slapped over a pretty average tactics game. Hyperdimension Neptunia is a cute and silly visual novel slapped over a very average PS2 era RPG game.
You can select which mission to do like in the later Final Fantasy games. Combat is that sliding face icon bar type which shows who gets to go next. There are power up attacks that your characters can get by shoving a game disk into themselves to gain special powers of random games like Galaga or Okami but those get dull quickly even though they do transform into sexier versions of themselves like magical girls. Thankfully you can button press to skip the animation, but they are cool the first time you see them.
Hyperdimension Neptunia is probably a $10 used game a year from now and I think most people are expecting it to drop that low before giving it a try. $30 is my purchase point on this game because I loved most everything about it which I had seen while watching 3 hours of it on youtube. The game is so nitch that you really need to love visual novels, anime, moe, comedy and RPGs to like it. Japan tends to eat this stuff up as their culture is so vastly different than ours, so it's probably not worth $30 to most people outside of Japan though. Honestly there are a LOT of JRPG games you can get for $30 that are better, such as Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, so a bit of research before buying is recommended.
[quote name='Crimsonfatale']when you refund this at your local gamestop do you get your full$30 back or is it in store credit? or a combo[/QUOTE]
I got cash back including the extra tax paid. BUT YMMV, your mileage my vary on what would actually happen. Gamestops are just too random from store to store to give you a proper answer. I had to go further out to a "cool" Gamestop as I knew the other two closer to me would give me a hard time about this.