The basic premise is that you play a survivor of a zombie apocalypse, dropped onto a huge map with nothing but the most basic supplies and tasked to survive for as long as possible. Other than zombies, the only characters you will come across are other human players, who are under no obligation to either help you or fight you. How you interact with other players is totally down to human nature, although your appearance is either that of a 'survivor' or a 'bandit' depending on how you play the game. The other important factor is that it features permanent death, so if you are killed then you must start again without any of the items you may have found, including such things as food, bandages, maps and compasses, which are of just as much importance as weapons.
You might be slightly put off by the fact that it features 'fast-zombies' rather than the more traditional kind but I think that slower moving zombies are only really a threat in confined spaces or large numbers. Day Z is mostly made up of large open areas with some villages scattered around and I doubt it could support thousands of zombies in a small area that would be required to make slow moving ones a threat. The fact that the zombies can chase you indefinitely also makes it very dangerous to run into them if you currently have no way of killing them. This video shows the aftermath of an attempt to raid a town, where two guys are eventually left running for their lives with no ammunition and a horde of zombies on their tail. Their final solution to the problem? That one of them should sacrifice themselves so that the other one has a chance of getting away.
That said, a lot of the time it seems that other players are a bigger threat than the zombies and you never know what to expect when you come across a stranger. Will they kill you on sight out of spite or fear that you will do the same to them? Or could they possibly be friendly? It is mostly these unique encounters that make the game fun to read about for me, coming across like a script for a zombie movie but with the drama evolving naturally. If you're looking for a place to start then Rock, Paper Shotgun has this piece and another, following players adventures so far. I initially discovered it through a gaming forum that I frequent so that also adds to the feeling that you kind of know the people describing their experiences (in some cases I do).
It can be a bit tougher to sit through videos of it that were recorded live as there is a lot of 'dead time' spent travelling or just doing nothing to hide from/stalk other players. Sometimes this gives a good flavour of how it must be to play it though, with the long quiet periods making the brief bursts of action even more tense. The video footage can also show up some of its clunky animations and weird glitches but it's still very impressive for a mod that's only at an alpha stage.
A little while ago I might have wondered whether such an open ended game without a clear ending or goal could not be that successful, especially from a commercial perspective. This was of course before Minecraft came along and achieved almost universal popularity, who knows where this might lead. It also follows in a long line of mods to existing engines that have gone on to become games in their own right like Counter Strike and Team Fortress. The slightly complicated setup process required at present might put some people off, so I could definitely see a packaged version drawing in even more people in the future. I'll just leave off with a video of the more humorous side of the game, where an army of players manages to scavenge enough items to repair a bus and then goes on a joyride...
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