Time evolution, near a phase transition in the critical domain of critical systems not far from equilibrium, using a Langevin-type evolution is studied. Typical quantities of interest are relaxation rates towards equilibrium, time-dependent correlation functions and transport coefficients. The main motivation for such a study is that, in systems in which the dynamics is local (on short time-scales, a modification of a dynamic variable has an influence only locally in space) when the correlation length becomes large, a large time-scale emerges, which characterizes the rate of time evolution. This phenomenon called critical slowing down leads to universal behaviour and scaling laws for time-dependent quantities. In contrast with the situation in static critical phenomena, there is no clean and systematic derivation of the dynamical equations governing the time evolution in the critical domain, because often the time evolution is influenced by conservation laws involving the order parameter, or other variables like energy, momentum, angular momentum, currents and so on. Indeed, the equilibrium distribution does not determine the driving force in the Langevin equation, but only the dissipative couplings are generated by the derivative of the equilibrium Hamiltonian, and directly related to the static properties. The purely dissipative Langevin equation specifically discussed, corresponding to static models like the f4 field theory and two-dimensional models. Renormalization group (RG) equations are derived, and dynamical scaling relations established.