Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

Alright, let's just get it out of the way the story in this game kinda sucks, especially when compared to D2. Other than that the length of the main campaign is a little shorter than I would like. Everything else this game does exceptionally better than D2.

The skill trees, while simplified, offer the most on-the-fly customization of any rpg i've ever played. Your character literallly has tons of different class styles all embedded in one class. The loot is varied and exceptional especially on later difficulties. The graphics are much better than I expected and have some of the best physics/insane carnage on the screen that I have ever seen. Online only is not a big deal to me because I have broadband.

This game is the most addicting game to come out in years and if your a diablo fan and you pass it up just because it differs a little from older games your missing out. The D2 skill and stat allocation system was completely broken. If you didn't invest enough points into a certain attribute at level 20 than you could be screwed at level 50, the new system eliminates this. Your character is better because of the skills and gear that it uses rather than being inferior just because someone googled the optimal build before making the character.

Now that I have put about 200 hours in I've come back to adjust my score from a 9.0 to and 8.0. This is certainly not a bad game, and it is better than most games that come out nowadays, it just does not offer the longevity that D2 offered, which is probably the reason people are so dissapointed with it. It is by no means unfixable though and is just a couple content patches and some tweaks(serious tweaks) from being on par with D2. It fixed a LOT of the inherent problems with D2, but at the same time went a step back in certain areas. The combat is 150 times better and if you don't agree with that this game will never be better than D2 for you. The legendaries in D2 were far superior, but I also don't even remember getting a high level legendary in my whole 3-4 years of playing hell difficulty. At least i've gotten at least 5 legendary drops in this game. I also only remember D2 after the LOD expansion and I feel like most of these people that hate D3 only remember D2 when it was in it's prime after years of patches + and expansion. D3 has great potential and I still have great faith that Blizzard will improve upon it. Right now it just has glaring problems that need to be fixed. The underlying gameplay(beating monsters faces and crushing their skulls) has never been better, they just are a few major tweaks and PVP away from a game that is truly better than D2 and that is saying something considering I loved D2 and it's in my top 5.