About the game:
Catan is based on the board game with the same name (which I however, have never played). It is essentially a strategy game, in which you gather resources (by having settlements near a resource area) and trade resource cards between other players. The game has a varied amount of emotes, to make your statement without words as well. The goal of the game is to obtain 10 victory points before anyone else. You gain victory points from a variety of different things, such as having the largest army, the longest road - and building cities to name a few.
Catan is a great addition to XBLA. I may be a bit biased as I love the board game, but the only issue I have with the XBLA version is the lack of an option to save your single player games.
I never touched the board game, but I have had a blast thus far playing it on XBLA. We should give it a spin sometime, and you can show me how to actually win