Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

These two spells looks very similar to each other, except one is an evil version.
Does anyone have any experience with either or both of these spells?
Useful spell? or do they both suck?
Should I pick one over the other, and why?

I'm looking to use them as arrow fodder, to cause chaos and distraction for the most part.

Oh I guess Army of Death is also a close fit - how does it compare to the other two?

Metal Men is a decent spell. Very short duration but you get more targets on the battlefield and augment summon with a bless, mass bulls and haste you have okish dps on the field.

By no means is it a Gate spell but it does what it is meant to do and might be worth more than a single offensive spell

For cannon fodder you could also consider Sand Warriors, Call Shadow Pack, Call Elementals or Conjure Spiders.

About spell alignment, RP wise I've found people sometimes react to Conjure Metalmen like you're probably going to the special hell. Probably because of their role in the singleplayer campaign.

Anyway, I'm not sure how bladelings and shadow demons compare, cause my character gets these odd looks when he summons shadow demons. I should probably go on a demon summoning spree for science.

One word of advice when casting any swarm/group type summoning spells: Once you see the spell casting reach 99%, mouse-click to move a foot or two, otherwise you run the risk of getting pinned in place by whatever invisible attach nodes come along with casting those spells. Basically, if you don't move, you can get stuck between these invisible thingies for a large portion of the duration of the spell.

If you do get stuck, not that I ever do and certainly not repeatedly having learned nothing at all... it apparently helps if you have something in range you can click to attack.