1) its similiar to RTS (ie. starcraft/warcraft) but with only 3 units. you give em commands (such as hold position, attack anything that moves, etc) in the same way. you can either control all 3 or just 1 each. and what mxerdude said about the positioning and location.
2)yea its online.
3) grind ranges from boring to fun. boring because it can get relatively slow and you can afk grind. fun if you manage to get friends to play or join a guild (as usual) and get into the higher lvs (of course) as you start to fight much,much stronger enemies and parties are required.
sword of the new world is really fun. It plays like the pc game dungeon siege. The graphics are flashy and there is plenty of action. Lots of violence.
The one draw back is that the servers are really empty. I thinks its because of bot problems or heavy server traffic from the beta.