Dynasty Warriors, Violent rendition of Chinese history... Heh

DW5:XL is no different from DW5 except for the Destiny Mode (which is quite interesting, but just 8 stages), not really worth the money if you ask me... The improvement from DW4 to DW5 is also not really noteworthy. Sure they remove the lagging, but those lags were not supposed to be there in the first place. New characters are nice, but I could go through a game for only so many times.

The individual story mode (musou mode) is also lacking... what kind of "individual story" it is if most of them share the same stages? Especially the end stages?

DW5 is a good place to start if you haven't played others... but if you're not really a DW fans and have played DW3/4, then...