Rating: 
Summary: Tame and Listless
Review: BoVD is neither particularly offensive nor particularly inspiring. The first, depending on your viewpoint, may be a good thing -- this book is really only unsuitable for children or other very impressionable persons. The latter is extremely disappointing. Cook does not offer any fresh perspectives on evil, taking the Disney-riffic "Evil==Ugly" route. For heaven's sake, there are feats for "obese" and "gaunt." Gee, Monte, YOU'RE a little thick in the waist... working on qualifying for the Stale Design prestige class?
With one exception, the prestige classes are underpowered and therefore unsuitable for PCs. They may be useful for NPCs. There are really only two solid reasons to buy this book: A) You are a DM and you are NOT comfortable with crafting rules on the fly: you want your tables, charts, and rules for things like torture, sacrifice, and possession. B) You are a DM and you are running a campaign that deals intimately with Demons or Devils, specifically the Demon Princes or Archdevils. They are all have a subsection. Be warned that you may find their stats underpowered for your campaign (CR's generally range from 20-30).
Rating: 
Summary: Not Enough Information
Review: This book is priced incorrectly for the amount of information in it. (...) For all of the hype about exploring the "dark" side of characters and phenomena in the D&D gaming environment, what we're seeing are more and more prestige classes, more and more spells... D&D gamers are far better served by detailed explanations and examples. We don't need hundreds of prestige classes. I was expecting much more from this book, but I'm also starting to say the same thing about each release for the third edition. The core rulebooks, plus the FR campaign setting were great. It's been sliding downhill since those releases.
Rating: 
Summary: Good source of EVIL material, not for the easily offended
Review: First off I am not condoning any of the acts or character depicted in this book. It is meant for game play only and should be viewed objectively. This tome gives some insight into the truly evil characters and denizens of the DND world's. It has ideas that can be usefull to flesh out a campaign and give villians that "extra quirk" that bring out the truly despicable. The work attempts to explain the nature of evil, and how characters who do evil for the cause of good might have to atone for their sins (always chance for redemption in the end, lol). Remember, evil is relative to a given situation. The section depicting the lords of the hells and their internal politics is a bit much. I prefer to think up my own ideas as to how things go in the infernal realms (also Dante is a good source of material). I am disapointed in the fact that someof my favorite demons and devils have ben deposed and replaced with no mention of their stats and/or activities to late. It would have been better to just keep their statistics in to preserve the 1st Edition flavor of the material. The section on characters, feats and spell goes on to bring forth interesting ideas for both player and DM. It should be remebered that thes can be tailored to your tastes by any decent DM/player. I would take them as suggestions, not law. The only hard part is finding a group that would allow you to play with these options. Most DM are opposed to "real" evil done by characters and penalize accordingly. Also it is har dto get along with that "(L)awful Good cleric and Paladin if you like death and debauchery. As a guide for DMs to create NPS it wil work great though...
Rating:
Summary: Not that great
Review: This book was informative to an extent, I think it was the pictures and not the content that earned it the mature readers only tag. Like many of the 3rd edition works, this one seemed underdone. It does, however, have useful sections, such as the one on torture and executions (good for really make the players hate the bad guy) and the section on residual evil in places and its effects. But these two parts are a total of about 6 pages long, including artwork.
Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: Reading the description of this book lead me to believe it was a source book about the evils that could be inserted into some of the less savory areas of the campaign world. Like slavery and prostitution. And maybe some hooks to allow good characters to rail against them. However, this book does not have much of this information. It is largely a source book of foul extra planar creatures and the mortals who follow them. (Prestige classes, clerical domains, and spells included.)
Rating: 
Summary: This is worthy game material?
Review: I found this book repulsive for a variety of reasons, but lets just start with a key quote:
p10, Psychopathy, second paragraph:
"Yet another type of psychopath worth mentioning: the rapist." Having gamed most of my life, this wasn't exactly what I was expecting from DnD. I understand the ideal of creating a vile villan worthy of utter destruction - and a rapist surely is deserving of such destruction - however, the question becomes what happens when player decide they want to play evil. Is rape to be considered game play - I've spoken to several women who would almost violently disagree. The corresponding Dragon Issue (#300) on page 47 last sentance on the first column:
"Characters who are not good aligned might pressure a captive for more information by threatening rape."
So, my next question is, what happens when the captive still refuses? Also, this sentance indicates rape is acceptable for neutral characters as well - rape is an utterely evil, vile act beyond any neutral or good standard. I guess I am just getting too old to play DnD as I don't consider rape an act that should be in a game. I am sure plenty of rape victims will agree that rape isn't a game. Aside from the condoning of rape in game play, some items in the book are usable, however, I can't justify recommending this book to anyone. It has also caused my desire for playing DnD to dwindle to nothing (haven't played since I obtained the book) - I don't want to be part of a group (DnD gamers) which the pubilsher encourages players to threaten rape and considers rape a game worthy act.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book (as usual for Monte's stuff), BUT.......
Review: ... this is NOT the game I used to play. The book itself is technically a piece of art : prestige classes are good (especially the disciples of arch-devils/thralls of demons, really creative), spells are adding value, magical items are good fun. A good Monte Cook creation (the only thing is the arch-devils/demon princes are ridiculously weak compared to even the tiniest monsters of the Epic-level Handbook - Asmodeus, well, can't be.... just that - the first infernal will crucify him). But this is not D&D ! If I wanted to play "In Nomine Satanis", I would have (I'm no christian at all, and been mocking those people calling D&D immoral since 18 years now). But really, what's the point specifying a child's eye used as a spell component has a 20% chance of doubling spell durations ? What's this silly drawing pg 181 showing people cut in half and bloody guts everywhere (there are cart loads of drawings like this everywhere - those reviewers who said the art work is amazing I simply advise them to read anatomy books. No, maybe they will lack the gore part of it ?) ? Is it useful to players to know you get +1 bonuses to checks if the sacrifice you make is tortured for more than 1 day/pure or virginal/loses extremities to hungry demon prior to death ? (all these examples are genuine). And I was really happy to know jaw breakers only cost 10 gold pieces, so now every character of mine can go adventuring with it (and great, I even get 1 Intimidate check for free, and more if I also use scalpels).... That's just ridiculous. It's not a question of ethics, it's just that this book doesn't catch the point, that it's only a game and you do not need to create systematic and developped rules (ad hoc ones are quite enough, while this book will just impress and/or destabilize youngsters or weak-willed persons). Sorry, Monte, but you should have taken one step aside i/o having worked like hell to create this technically excellent product (and I do regret, Mr Valtera, - like many people here in France to say the very least - that WotC's product line followed this weird path). Ah, a last word for parents : this book is really the SOLE one my own children will not be EVER allowed to even peruse (and I'm sorry, reviewer, but it has nothing to do with Diablo II).
Rating: 
Summary: Truly vile - and it's about time!
Review: Why just keep fighting orcs because they're just 'supposed' to be evil? Give your party something to really feel justified in killing! The rules and write-ups in here are 'finally' nasty and evil enough to make your party members legendary heroes. Be forewarned that the content has a mature rating and I feel it is justified. But, it's what most DM's have been waiting for to make a truly terrifying campaign.
Rating:
Summary: Great looks, little content
Review: Don't be fooled. Nothing "vile" about this book unless you have led a very sheltered life. Pretty much "PG" at best. The graphics are, as usual with WotC, excellent. As far as content goes: you'll get just as much for far less by doing a web search for "torture device", "sexual deviance", and "lame evil prestige classes". Out.
Rating:
Summary: Book of Vile Darkness - Monte Doesn't Have the Guts for Evil
Review: Let me preface the comments I will make below (mostly negative) with the statement that all-in-all, I think the game mechanics and monsters in the book are useful additions to the D&D 3E canon. HOWEVER, the historical inaccuracies and philosophical shortcomings of the book cannot be ignored. Monte Cook has evidently not done much research into historical torture and execution practices (who can blame him, its gutwrenching stuff). More than half of the descriptions of torture devices and execution methods are, in whole or in part, inaccurate or incomplete (and in the case of execution methods, intolerably sparse). The prime example of this is his description of "drawing and quartering", which he states is the practice of execution performed by tying a cord around the intestines of the victim and having a horse gallop away, drawing the intestines out (which is supposed to be fatal). For one, this is not an accurate explanation of drawing, and doesn't cover the quartering part at all. Drawing was/is indeed the practice of drawing out the intestines of the victim. However, it was almost never fatal in and of itself, hence the subsequent quartering (which Monte doesn't mention at all), which is performed by tying each of the victims four limbs to FOUR DIFFERENT horse, then causing the horses to gallop away in four different directions, hence tearing the victim into four parts (quartering). Half of an inaccurate description. On to the "nature of evil". Monte sidesteps dealing with the subject at all by stating that in D&D 3E, evil is an objective phenomenon. Fair enough. If you can detect evil with a spell, it's objective. He then goes on to say that some people in the "real" world take a relativistic approach to the definition of evil (it's in the eye of the beholder). He then neglects coverage of this more complex topic and moves on to fatuous examples of what HE sees as evil. Torture is always evil, killing intentionally is always evil, etc. This is sheer irresponsibility. Good characters (in the real world and in D&D) must be able to perform some of his supposedly "evil" acts and retain their goodness, or the logical inconsistencies become overwhelming. By his simplistic definition, every single historical medieval monarch would be by definition evil (they all, without exception, condone the practice of torture). In short, Monte completely abrogates his responsibility to define evil in a mature and complex way; he basically just says, "evil is evil". This makes it quite clear that all of the very insightful philosophical musings on the nature of reality, evil, and the supernatural in the Call of Cthulhu game were written by John Tynes. Monte is a freshman philosopher at best (calling him sophomoric is an insult to sophomores, who have actually probably taken a philosophy or ethics class), and Wizards should have found someone else to collaborate on this part of the book. All this having been said, the "Lords of Evil" section, the prestige classes, the game mechanics (vile damage, etc.) are all extraordinarily well done, useful at all levels of play, and tastefully presented. If you cut out the first three chapters of the book, it would be a bargain at $15.
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