The game starts slowly, ends big.

To begin with, go spend some time in the Arena to get some starting cash and a few bonus levels. It also will let you practice combat without getting slaughtered.

Then head out and do some head hunting. Find forest bandits, battle them and sell them to slavers for more cash. Get your leadership skill up so you can recruit more troops.

This is the point at which you're ready to "do your own thing." Mount and Blade is the kind of game where people who don't pick a side in something have less to do. So. You have some choices. You can visit lords until one of them eventually wants you do to something that will make you an enemy of one of the nations. Or you can sign up as a mercenary and serve tours of duty for different nations. While you're serving as a mercenary, the faction you're at war with will temporarily hate you, and you basically have a blank check to go burn their towns and kill their armies. While you're serving as a mercenary captain, you'll be asked to follow around one of the faction leaders to support them while they do patrols or siege castles.

Being a mercenary is a great way to get post battle loot (your primary source of income, your mercenary pay doesn't cover more than chunk of your army.) You can also take beaten lords hostage and ransom them for lots of dosh.

On the downside, being a mercenary means you're hired help. You don't get to share in the real spoils unless you're actually a lord of that nation. If you've done well by your employers, they'll offer to make you a lord of their realm. This isn't a permanent decision...but it's the end of you being a neutral player in the world.

If you like your independence, you have three other options. One, you can just be a trader. Which is pretty boring to me. Two, you can be a raider and live fairly well off looted villages. But you eventually make enemies of the nations and dig yourself a very deep negative faction reputation. Three, you can try to start a kingdom of our own, by taking territory from another nation as your own. This however will make you the enemy of that nation for all time.....and the other nations will also probably try to take you down since you're now the weakest of the great nations.

The gameplay path that holds the most to do is the lordship path, whether it's for one of the other factions or for yourself. Once you own land you can start modifying and improving it.

So really it's up to you how you proceed. Having bought M&B years ago, I shelled out $20 for Warband, and while I haven't played it for a while, I consider a good game I can always go back to. I haven't yet found a game that dose mass infantry and cavalry combat like M&B.

    I got Mount and Blade for $10.  It's not, in any way, epic.  However, it is a fun diversion and I think that I have gotten my $10 out of it.  As Nenjin noted, it is very slow off the start.  I kept getting frustrated because I was captured so many times and would lose my gear, men, and gold.  However, if you can stick with it for the first couple of hours, then you can get the hang of everything and learn how to avoid getting captured.  As you progress, you get to do bigger and better stuff.  Sieging castles is fun, and you can become a marshal and command other lords.  It's fun once you've paid a bit of time into it, but the first couple of plays will be frustrating.

    I thought that the coolest thing was the missile detail.  Arrows remain stuck in the ground or your shield, as do axes and javelins.  It's a neat effect, I think, that is not found in many games.

    I haven't tried it yet, but it's on my "To Play" list! 

Warband is much more intresting than original Mount and Blade. It have new map, new faction (Sarranid Sultanate), enhanced diplomacy and, of course, multiplayer.

Also i recommend to play Warband with mod "Diplomacy", thats make diplomacy system much more enhanced.

Sorry for bad english.

One word answer to question "Is Mount and Blade worth it": Yes.

Longer answer... But I still liked it better when it was in beta.

Yes warband is worth it.....

and I generally don't like RTS, so this is really high praise.

Also worth mentioning: this game has exceptional mod potential. Right up there with Bethesda games. Mods for every scenario, race, balance or content wish. So when you're done with the core game, there is lot and lots and lots to go freshen it up with.

And yes, recruit the named characters as soon as you're able. They make your army dramatically more effective and supplement all the skills you can't afford to raise up.

Plus on easier modes they can't die...which is good because they have as much sense of self-preservation as your rank and file. Once you get them good gear they become combat shock troopers.

I spent a lot of time with the game, most of it in Multiplayer Warband. It's a reasonable medieval combat simulator, and the cavalry implementation is actually the best I ever saw. I even rather like the graphics, but hate the combat animations which were obviously made by someone who does not know a lot about swordplay. 

Other than that, the multiplayer really suffers from an archaic scoring system (you are rewarded only for kills, not for teamwork or objectives), and lack of interesting game modes other than deathmatch.

I recently picked With Fire and Sword, which is much more about muskets and much less about sword duels, but it brings diversity to the gameplay.

A lot of people didn't like With Fire and Sword, but it has been patched and I find it a lot of fun.  Also, when I get shot and knocked unconscious, I laugh my ass off.  Even though I just lost the battle, it's funny to watch me get shot off my horse.  

I have played Warbands every single moment that I have had free since I purchased it. I love sandbox games.  The combat is a lot of fun for me.  Hitting a guy in the head with a throwing axe is about as much fun as you can ever hope to have.  I laugh hysterically everytime and my GF thinks I'm a psychopath. 

Killing a guy with a single arrow as he fell off his horse was worth the price of admission for me. I LOVE Warband!

Ebay has Warband for under $10, also try Amazon.

At first the notion of fighting without a horse was a little daunting, but once you learn to take out horses its fun.  I love taking out a horse charging at me with a well timed arrow or javelin to the horses head and then chopping up the rider.  So fun

I also enjoy leveling peasant women, I love sword sisters, they are very useful both in field battles as mounted troops and as siege and castle defenders due to their crossbows.