Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"All it's cracked up to be"

This game is what Diablo 3 should have been. I know that's a bad way to start a review, but it's true.

The loot system in this game is deep and satisfying. There's a huge range of weapons and attributes and skills. There's so many ways to build your character that it almost feels overwhelming. But that's a good thing because it creates endless replayability.

The trick is to manage your attributes (strength, dexterity, focus, and vitality), your weapons and armor and your skills. I'm playing as the engineer, and I started by using a two handed weapon because that's how I could maximize damage. But then I switched to a cannon because it's just really cool to have a gigantic cannon that blows away everything in its path.

Unlike Diablo 3, where the weapon was completely irrelevant, in TL2, the weapon matters. It really changes your strategy and game experience depending on the weapon you use.

The loot system is just so deep! There's sockets, enchantments, attribute bonuses, damage bonuses, etc. There's different types of socketable items that do different things other than simply raising HP, DPS or magic find. It's just a colossal breath of fresh air after having plodded my way through D3.

There's so many things about this game that prove it was developed by people who like video games, as opposed to D3, which felt like it was developed by people who had never played a video game in their lives. The ability of your pet to run back to town and sell your gear is great. You almost never need to go back to town unless you want to. You don't have to repair your gear, which personally i like very much.

I keep comparing TL2 to D3 because the comparison really illustrates the difference between a developer with money (D3) and a developer with talent (TL2). D3 has much better graphics and visuals. TL2 looks like it could have come out 5 years ago. But, in terms of play value TL2 is miles ahead of D3. These guys know how to make a game.

If you were a fan of Diablo 2 (and who wasn't?) and if you were just so disappointed by by D3, TL2 is your game. This is the hack and slash dungeon crawler you were waiting for back in May, when Blizzard's servers couldn't handle the 6 million fan boys.