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I was thinking of picking this up, but was wondering- how good are the minis in the box? They look okay in the pictures, but do they paint up nicely? And what scale are they? Also, I don't suppose anyone has an exact list of the miniatures inside? I did a bit of a search for this but my search fu must be weak because I didn't find anything.

I own it and all the expansions up to Road to Legend. It is an awesome game worth your money.

The figures do not really have a scale, I think. But they on average are close to a 28mm scale.
They are a rubbery toy soldier plastic that can flex the paint off.
But cleaning them well with mineral spirits and using a good gloss coat, maybe multiples can improve the durability immensely.
Then you can use a matte or dullcote to kill the gloss.

We have played the all the missions and are part through RtL campaign, and only a few weapon or fingertips have worn off.

The character minis were originally for Runebound, where they were used as simply tokens on the map.
I have about 30 heroes, but I don't remember which sets they came in.
The monsters appear to have been created specifically for Descent and expansions.

In the main box there is:
2 Dragons
2 Demons
2 Giants
3 Ogres
3 Manticores
3 Nagas
6 Razorwings
6 Sorcerors
6 Hellhounds
9 Giant Spiders
9 Beastmen
9 Skeleton Archers

Well of Darkness has:
3 Golems
6 Ferrox (Feral Vampiric Beastmen)
18 Kobolds

Altar of Despair has:
3 Trolls
3 Chaos Beasts
3 Deep Elf Assassins
6 Blood Apes
6 Dark Priests

Thanks a million, that was exactly what I was looking for.

You should really check out Board Game Geek for this game.
Lots of reviews, and people have put up their painted stuff as well.

Miniatures are soft 'toy soldier' plastic in a scale slightly smaller than for Lord of the Rings.

I like the miniatures and the plastic is not difficult to paint and holds its paint. The only real downside is that the bases tend to warp.

As for the game itself, its not balanced, but is fun so all is forgiven.

Some of my minis came (through the post from Amazon) broken up--i.e., wings broken off a dragon or giant spiders broken from their bases. This has not interfered with my enjoyment of the game as I would never be bother with painting them.

The game can be a lark but it can also be rather frustrating for the non-Overlord players. I played it with my old D&D group this past November and soundly wiped the floor with them as the Overlord. I also ended up winning ONCE as part of a team of characters and it as very rewarding given how clever we needed to be. But when our group's resident minmaxer/game breaker played Overlord, we stood not a chance.

Honestly, it plays nothing at all like a RPG. I expected it to be somewhere between D&D and Runebound (something my group could do out of the box during a visit now that I've moved away) but it's very much a board game with no strong RPG elements. It does have strong support from FFG, however, and if you like a quite intense challenge, I'd highly recommend it. But I would not buy this rather expensive (80-100USD new) game for the minis.

Thanks again, all really useful feedback. I was interested because I had so much fun playing my friend's copy of space hulk, and it got me thinking about Warhammer Quest and all that good stuff. Descent looked like a reasonable analogue for that, and I liked the look of the contents.
It is very expensive though.