Wordpress Comment reply link does not appear

It can be helpful to read the source for comment_reply_link (http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.2.1/wp-includes/comment-template.php#L1061), as there are multiple conditions that can lead to the link not appearing. Work through each one at a time, and you'll likely find your answer.

The one that tripped me up, is that the link will not appear if comments are closed. So it can be helpful to review the comment settings on the blog to make sure that providing replies is actually allowed on this post.

Try this:

comment_reply_link(array_merge( $args, array('depth' => $depth, 'max_depth' => $args['max_depth'])))

Thanks to the following codex-entry (http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/comment_reply_link), I managed to find the actual use of the comment_reply_link() on the following link: http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.2.1/wp-includes/comment-template.php#L1061

This leaves me with the following question - did you try adding either the second or the third parameter for the function? I think there might be something fishy going on under the hood, making the comment-link not know where to actually link.

Try removing the following snippet

comment_reply_link( array ( 'reply_text' => 'Reply this comment' ) );

and instead use the following one

comment_reply_link( array('reply_text' => 'Reply this comment'), comment_ID(), the_ID() );

Let me know if it works out for you!