Quantum dimer models have attracted much attention recently as they can be seen as a low energy effective model for frustrated magnets. In some of these models, where exact results can be obtained, exotic phases such as spin liquid phases or deconfining critical points can be shown to exist. Topological degeneracy, and its relation to criticality, is another issue that can be very well controlled in these models. The study of classical dimer models is also of great interest as their behavior can be directly related to the ground state properties of their quantum counterpart. In this talk we will quickly review some of the well established results of the most known dimer models and analyze some simple generalizations for 2 and 3 dimensional systems. In 3 dimensions, we will study an interacting model which undergoes a phase transition that is supposed to be in the same universality class of the so called deconfined criticality of frustrated quantum magnetism.