Rating: 
Summary: Poor
Review: First off, pay attention to the title of this book. It is about how to design a 3D graphics engine, it will not teach you Direct X nor C#. If that is your goal you will be better served elsewhere. Even if this is what you are looking for you will find better references out there.
This book will appeal to you if you wish to explore the different aspects of designing a 3D game engine using semi-decent OOD. And while there is some good information in here for beginers in this area, it can take quite a bit of searching around and rereading to find it, as the layout and presentation of this book are terrible. For a book about making graphics, there are no screenshots for any of the presented code, and not a single diagram. For a book which states that it uses OOD as a goal, I would expect at least some UML to better explain the concepts, but no such luck. There are pages of uncommented code throughout the book, and the acompanying descriptions are often times incomplete, or do not match what the code is doing. The first chapter contains a large code listing across several pages and there is not a single comment or explanation on what it is doing. Code listings often make use of objects introduced in later chapters, which becomes hard to follow after a while with the lack of diagrams or a reasonable overview of the project.
The whole book gave me the impression of being rushed and I did not really feel the author really even cared about his readers, as the whole book seems to have been thrown together at the last minute from unfinished notes. At the time of its release, there is a lack of books covering the subject of C# with Direct X, and I feel the only reason for this book was to capitalize on this. Skip this one, you will find more help searching free tutorials on the web, and you will likely spend less time finding the information than in this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Pathetic
Review: I actually have some 3D gaming experience in DX and I know for a fact that this book is a [bad]. The "Sample Game" doesn't even work. The damn thing doesn't even render, I just get flashes of pink and green on the screen. The book itself doesn't even give you good information on DX...I threw this book away after the first chapter. Take it from someone with experience in the field, don't buy this book even if your life depends on it.
Rating: 
Summary: It's just what I wanted
Review: I bought more than 10 books within the last 2 months, they are all about 3D games, C#, MMORPG. This book is definitely one of the best. It gives almost all I need, as a novice hobbist would like to stick to C#/DirectX.1)Introduction
The book sticks perfectly to its title. It introduced almost all the elements a novice needs to build a 3D game. Though it seems to be in a rush to get the book well-organized, it by no means means that it's not informative. It shows you all you need to model a 3D engine from scratch, and with all the keys to bring the model to reality. 2)C# and DirectX
I assure you that there're not much (if not none) books explain this combination C#+DirectX, not even Microsoft documents will shed some lights on it. However, you can sneak into the details from this book. Since I demand more on the DirectX in C#. Piece of advice:
If you'd stick to C#/DirectX and want to kick things off quick as an novice, buy this book. Else if you go C++, OpenGL, not yet make up your mind, wanna be a professional rather than a hobbist, and etc., go buy C++ Gurus books.
Rating:
Summary: OK, if you like to study uncommented code
Review: I didn't expect this book to teach me C# or DirectX, so no worries there. The book, along with the code that you have to download from apress, shows how to design & code a game engine. Actually, it's pretty weak on the design, since there are NO diagrams, and very little doc in the code, to help me understand what I'm reading. No explanation of relationships between the various objects & classes. What's especially confusing is trying to find methods that are called by the sample code. Is the method in a base class? Do I need to override it? Is it in another object that I have to write...? If there's one thing that might save this book, it would be more diagrams, such as UML. After reading Chapter 1 and its code (which calls game engine methods but doesn't explain them), I had to download the code and go through it line by line. I wrote out the method calls by hand, and now I finally understand the high-level structure of the engine and the sample game. But that doesn't even include AI, input, lighting, sound, and how game objects are organized inside the engine. I guess I've got my work cut out for me.
Rating:
Summary: OK, if you like to study uncommented code
Review: I didn't expect this book to teach me C# or DirectX, so no worries there. The book, along with the code that you have to download from apress, shows how to design & code a game engine. Actually, it's pretty weak on the design, since there are NO diagrams, and very little doc in the code, to help me understand what I'm reading. No explanation of relationships between the various objects & classes. What's especially confusing is trying to find methods that are called by the sample code. Is the method in a base class? Do I need to override it? Is it in another object that I have to write...? If there's one thing that might save this book, it would be more diagrams, such as UML. After reading Chapter 1 and its code (which calls game engine methods but doesn't explain them), I had to download the code and go through it line by line. I wrote out the method calls by hand, and now I finally understand the high-level structure of the engine and the sample game. But that doesn't even include AI, input, lighting, sound, and how game objects are organized inside the engine. I guess I've got my work cut out for me.
Rating:
Summary: Shattered Hopes
Review: I had been eagerly waiting for this book for almost 6 months and was disapointed in the results. While the author does show some mastery over the subject material, he demonstrates very little attention to detail and I got a distinct impression that the author could not be bothered. This is evident throughout the book. The cover of the book is the only place you will find anything relating to 'multiplayer'. You wont even find mention of it in the glossary. The logic flow of physics makes me think that not enough time was put in to make sure that is was a sound design before writing about it and slapping it on the shelf. Also, The example binaries provided do not function and the source has already gone through an update post release due to bugs. Even after you manage to compile the code yourself, the examples do not work properly, feel very amateurish and are based on the examples that come with the DirectX9 SDK! (Note the cheesy file menu for an obvious example) There is also very little error checking and things could have been structured a little more efficiently(this is obviously an opinion). And while its not related directly to the book, the author didnt even bother spelling the name of his publisher right on his tag on the APress forums(where you can go to complain the code doesnt work), which shows up on every post he makes. In summary, you can pick up some structring techniques and also see some examples of what not to do from this book, but you might be happier spending your money and time elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: This book fails to teach C# or Game Programming!
Review: I had been waiting for this book to come out for months. After multiple delays, it finally arrived. And, I am very disappointed. Clearly a lot has been removed from the book since its initial concept. The "Game Programming" aspect of the book is just one Chapter. There are references to a mysterious Chapter 6 throughout the book, but Chapter 6 does not exist. My guess is that it was removed before publication. This book is not even good if you are new to programming. There are several places that assume you have an understanding of C/C++. Novice programmers will be quite frustrated by this. I originally bought this book as a gift for my young nephew who has not programmed in any language, hoping it was going to teach C# in the context of game programs. Unfortunately it fails to cover C# from a novice perspective, and there is only one chapter on games. Hardly worth putting Game Programming in the title. My recommendation is to find another book. Unfortunately this one does not live up to its promises.
Rating: 
Summary: Exactly what I want.
Review: I just browsed the book in a bookstore in California, and decided to order it from Amazon. However, I am very confused over the negative ratings here. I guess, we are all looking for different things, at different levels. I want to model physical objects, like cars, and show how they move in a 3D-world. My idea is that the best way to get a better understanding of cars and the laws of physics in 3 dimensions, is to develop a program for it! I think this is more fun than any other kind of programming. This book will suit me well. Perfect for my level.
Rating:
Summary: Total Disappointment
Review: I received this book 3 days ago after anticipating its arrival for 3 months. I have 4 other book from Apress about .NET programming and have been very happy so far, so I figured this book would be a winner too. That was the wrong assumption. I downloaded the code (the original and the patch). After patching together peices from both downloads I finally got it to compile, but the car doesn't even move (not a very fun driving game). The author seemed to write the book assuming you knew exactly what he was thinking when he wrote the program. He also doens't give a very clear description of his (some what cryptic) code. I'm getting ready to send this book back ASAP.
Rating:
Summary: Not that bad
Review: I think the word "introduction" in the book's title is the source of some of these bad reviews (that, and source code that initially had some bugs -- that problem has been remedied..see the Apress Forums for updated code). This book is not really introductory and is not really a DirectX9 tutorial. Instead, the author assumes a working knowledge of the DX9 object model and at least a basic knowledge of 3D design fundamentals. What the book does offer is a walk-through for building a working game engine, complete with physics models and AI, using managed DirectX 9 libraries. As such, this is the only book on the shelves that explores this new topic.
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