The folks over at IGN have previewed MK Shaolin Monks, in addition to posting eight direct feed videos of the game! From the article:
Our gameplay demonstration began with Liu and Kung leaping heroically into an awfully disgusting pit. Turns out we were in Goro's Lair, the second to last boss stage from the original Mortal Kombat – even the piles of skeletons were intact. Before we could get to punching some ogre face, Raiden showed up and spoke briefly about duty, heroism, the plight of Earth, electricity, amperage, etcetera. The basic gist of his little speech was, "Y'all need to be pummeling some bad dudes, so...get it on!" And right about then, the combat began.

Enemies, like in most beat 'em ups, appear in waves. We fought them with normal attacks, power attacks, launching attacks, throws, an attack modifying shift button and a lock-on / block combination button. The basic action included a lot of fluid combos. It was somewhat reminiscent of Soul Calibur in that pressing any buttons in sequence without any real applied skill yielded an appreciable result. It was also super easy to transition in and out of moves and switch from blocking to fighting, unlike other games that play long animation routines and force their users to stupidly sit and wait until the combo is finished.
To read the article in its entirety, click here.

Also, be sure to check out the 8 videos. Here's a list of what to look for:
  • 2-Player Co-op
  • 2-player VS.
  • Single-player 01
  • Single-player 02
  • Moonlit fight
  • Clearing the caves
  • Baraka fight pt. 1
  • Baraka fight pt. 2
So definitely check out the videos page here. The videos are free to download in the WMV (Windows Media Video) format for all, or as QuickTime files for IGN Insider members. Thanks once again to MK Online chat/forum member DECEPTION for the word!