I have seen his really old video material (1996 copyright) and his instruction is pretty good. I also have the Big Book of Combat and imagine a good deal of the material covered is on the DVD, based on descriptions of each DVD of his newer series.
I imagine his modern DVD set is much better, especially in terms of presenting the techniques by way of video transitions.
There really aren't very many DVD sets you could compare the Rutten series to. If you had a year of training at a legit grappling and striking gym (rough estimate for very basic fundamentals and muscle memory), I think the DVD's would be pretty solid if you were in a situation where you couldn't train at a gym, but had at least one training partner available. If you are an absolute beginner, a DVD set will not be as productive, but it might be ok.
You could probably do a whole lot worse with $100 than a 12-hour DVD set that definitely has a lot of good.