Well, its been twelve years since the last one, its rather safe to say that I've been waiting a looong time for this game. I have had my doubts, seeing what's happened to games in the 7th generation and massive success of World of Warcraft also made me a bit worried as to which direction Blizzard would take their other games and that perhaps they would want to steer the legendary Diablo franchise closer to the MMO route.
Let's do a rundown of different segments and aspects of this title, bear in mind that I have only played through Act III on Normal and my character is currently level 29.
Visuals: The visuals are... fine. And nothing else. I'm not sure I like the art direction as much as Diablo I and II, but that doesn't mean that its bad or anything, it just seems a little bit too bright and cheerful for me, the gothic style and deep, dark places have been replaced with lush meadows, sunlit vistas and surprisingly cozy caverns and basements. Its like Tim Burton laid down the paintbrush and let Walt Disney take over. 
The graphics technology itself is not that impressive, the jump between Titan Quest and this is rather small and you would be hard pressed to convince someone who didn't know otherwise that these two titles aren't from the same era. On top of that, the system requirements are actually fairly steep, especially considering what you get from all of it and the tweaking options are rather lacking in my opinion (textures; low or high...).
Sound: It just struck me, the only pieces of music I notice and appreciate and actually remember after turning the game off are the revamped Matt Uelmen tracks that have been with us since Diablo I way back when. The rest of the soundtrack just seems bland to me, it just doesn't set the mood right like Diablo I and II did. It is worth mentioning though, that the revamped tracks from Diablo I and II are aswesome, spine tingling works of art.
Online and servers: There has been a lot of talk of servers crashing, poor capacity and a general clusterfuck online with the release of this game. Now, I can accept and understand that massive coop games can be tricky to offer to a world of starving fans but when you make a game that forces you to play even single player online, the shit should work. And what the hell is up with getting kicked from your own single player games if you go make some food or take a dump? If you're in the middle of a vast dungeon, you'll have to do the entire thing all over again. Why can't you stay in-game and afk for more 10-15 minutes without being booted from a SINGLE PLAYER GAME. This part pisses me off. The auction house suffers from server issues as well, I tried to buyout some gear last night but only got the "request timeout" message every time, I tried to buy more gear, got the same message pluss "transaction failed" or "item is unavailable". The items truly were unavailable, I thought it was due to people buying them real fast but as it turns out, they were unavailable because I had actually bought them myself, even though the game told me outright that I had not and could not. Would be fine if it weren't for the fact that I was stuck with four bows where I only needed one, two pairs of pants and two helmets, and I was also dead broke after this trouble.
System, skills and stats: I was worried that Blizzard would choose the same route as everyone else this generation; dumbing things down to appeal more to mass-market gamers. People said I was silly. They were wrong. Blizzard have basically made the game function on constant auto-mode. There are no skill points or stat points at all to place. This makes little sense in an "RPG" (Diablo was never a full fledged RPG) and it annoys me a lot. "Its to prevent silly builds" they claim. Well, ok, but it creates an experience where everyone is capable of the exact same thing as long as they're the same class and it actually costs you some damage output and potential health. My Demon Hunter allocates his points automatically every single level and always leaves at least one point each in Intelligence and Strength. I don't need them! At all! There are no requirements besides class and level for any of the gear and the sixty or so points he has wasted on these could have gone into my Dexterity and Vitality, why can't I choose this myself? Since there's a respec option, why not let people choose and place the points themselves? This makes no sense to me at all (yes it does, don't leave the stupid kids behind, is the point... ).
Classes and gameplay: Now, I don't know how the other classes function but I chose a Demon Hunter for my first playthrough and either the game is ridiculously easy on Normal or my class is seriously overpowered. Meanwhile, my roommate who plays a Witch Doctor gets his ass handed to him by almost all big bosses, he has summons to take the brunt of damage but he can't cause any damage himself! Seems like his low level skills are pretty bad, while one of my first skills was incredibly kick-ass and I still use it and own everything at level 29 (Rapid Fire, opens at level 3 or something)! The health globes are a fairly nice addition, it was hell having to carry thousands of healing potions so this is a welcome change for me. Then again, since up to fifty potions take up as little space as one did in Diablo II, it sort of doesn't make sense either.
The gameplay overall is pretty damn good though, great even. The enemies have so many different attacks and skills and the addition of interactive environments is truly a welcome change. The hunt for good loot and the thrill of mowing down hordes of enemies or a boss group is still fun as hell (pun intended). The artisans are another new and welcome addition for me, I like being able to combine extraordinary gems (and they're easier to find this time around, but there are more levels to them) and craft gear, allthough it is pretty wasteful having the smith produce five armors until it gets the enchantmens you wanted/needed. One of the best features of this game though, or any game ever, is the characters newfound ability to pick up gold when you walk close to or over it, having to click on individual piles of gold, or even single coins, in the two previous games was a real pain in the proverbial posterior.
Temporary conclusion:
I truly believe I'll enjoy the game more on Nightmare and Hell, and even Inferno so my experience will only get better from here on out so this is by no means a final verdict. Some small things annoy me and other things are more big deals, the core system won't be changed by anything but a small measure so I'm bound to carry my gripes about the mechanics with me forever. There are worse things, but I still feel like its a little below the belt for old fans that have been waiting for over a decade to present a game that takes most of the choices and contemplation away. I know they want to appeal to the now infamous "broader audience" and make piles of money but Blizzard are in the rare poition in the market where they can have their cake and eat it too, the Diablo franchise is huge and laid the foundations for Battle.net and I'm convinced that they could have added more depth and still not deterred a lot of people from giving this a shot. When they started simplifying the WoW mechanics, that's when people started to leave, the more mindless you make something, the less interesting it is to spend a lot of time with it (for the most part).
I might come off as whiny and self-entitled and elitist but that's not my intention. Not even a little bit. I just feel like the "broader audience" is ensuring me and a lot of other people are recieving the short end of the stick this generation and that things have been taken down quite enough, how dumb are games going to become if this goes on? Tell you what Blizzard, if you introduce an expansion with the possibility of tweaking and customizing your character properly some time in the future, I'll forgive everything!
Is Diablo III a good game? Yes, by all means, I can't deny that with all the hours I already have invested in it. The gameplay makes up for a lot of the negative things, its truly addictive, which is the hallmark of Blizzard titles. I do feel like this could have been so much more though.
Temporary score: 8.2
Thanks for reading! Oh, and feel free to add me on Battle.net, my ID is Mummelmann#2591
