I might get this depending on length and co-op

Yeah, 2011 is shaping up to be the best RPG year since the Golden Age back in the day! Diablo III, The Witcher 2 and Skyrim are day one for me for sure and there is a lot of Indie stuff coming out as well (like you mentioned). I'm currently playing Eschalon Book II and enjoying the hell out of it.

I did love Dungeon Siege I and II though, so I'll give the third one a chance as well before I make up my mind.

yea there is also an extremely promising spiritual successor to x-com that might actually be finished and released this year in the form of Xenonauts lol this is going to be a great year indeed

and the main reason why this game will probably be crap

Dungeon Siege III’s multiplayer sounds like a lot of fun in the best of dungeon-crawling traditions, but as none of your friends get anything out of the experience for their own saves, you’ll need to source some selfless co-op buddies.

According to Gamespot’s preview, players joining you in co-op will serve as “assistants” to the host, making no progress in their own games.

A party limit of four applies regardless of player numbers. Alone, the player controls all four characters, but can have two online and one local, screen-sharing buddy to take up the slack, assuming you can find some. Drop-in drop-out multiplayer with a backup AI means you can probably do without them.

The preview also covered Dungeon Siege III’s abilities system wherein a single player can rotate through three stances, seemingly offensive, defensive and balanced. Levelling unlocks new abilities for purchase in each stance, but skill points are limited.

NPC interaction takes place on a dialogue wheel (or the end of a sword, probably), and like Dragon Age, improving relationships with party members can improve their performance.

I'm confident Obsidian will do a good job on the PC version.

Also, extra points for being a Steamworks game.

aRPGs are much better suited for consoles than PCs.  Even Diablo would be much better with a controller, albeit some changes would be necessary to aiming.  Too Human is still the best aRPG ever made from a combat stand point.

since when? aRPGs have always been better on PC especially dungeon crawlers like Diablo. Diablo on PSone was inferior to the PC version in every way. the high precision of the mouse combined with it's speed just makes targeting more precise and fast, inventory management is also easier with a mouse. The high number of skills etc also favour the many hot-keys that are available on a keyboard. Then there is the screen advantage of being closer and higher resolution that means that more enemies can be shown on screen at once etc. Analogue movement is the only advantage of a gamepad and as Dungeon Siege supports gamepad you can do that if you prefer. 

And sacrifices always have to be made when moving a game from PC to consoles and more than just aiming if you want to make the game play good on a console. 

And considering Dungeon Siege has traditionally been more of an tactical RPG (Dungeon Siege 2 less so and that was a worse game) so the fact that Dungeon Siege 3 is now pretty much a straight up action RPG with some tag alongs I would say it's fair to say that the PC version has been gimped so it plays well on consoles. Does that mean it won't still be a fun game and be great on PC? No but to say the game hasn't been gimped to make it for consoles is a lie.

As for Too Human's combat I have never played it myself but considering it was pretty much universally panned and many of the complaints about the game I heard was about the combat so forgive me if I don't take your word for it...

Indeed. Isometric view RPG gameplay is without any doubt vastly better on the PC.

I fear Dungeon Siege is taking the route of Dragon Age, Mass Effect and all other RPG's (even the JRPG's are doing this); more action, less depth = RPG elements being sacrificed for the benefit of bullshit and mindless drone work.

Shio; Seeing as how Bioware are losing their shit, Bethesda are doing a worse and worse job (I do have some hopes for Skyrim though) and Square Enix are turning into Disney from Japan, I see no reason to have faith in Obsidian. These are new times, times where developers want pimple faced teenagers to cackle and screech at onscreen blast effects and mindless action, even RPG's are taking the Van Damme way and nothing seems holy any more. The time of the Baldur's Gates, Daggerfalls, Ultimas, Planescape: Torments, Temple of Elemental Evil and proper Final Fantasy games is at an end. The RPG genre is slowly suffocating under the thick smog of Hollywood game production models.

aRPG (aRPG as roughly defined as Diablo-like, not the aJRPGs) is my favorite genre, and I have played virtually everyone ever released, included some real stinkers.  Most have been played on PC.  The Snowblind games demonstrated that the console was a viable aRPG platform.  Sacred 2 was a much better experience on 360 than PC. 

Too Human gets irrational hate and is the most criminally underrated game of all time.  Given my stated bias for the genre, Too Human is easily a top 5 game this gen.  Currently, I have it rated 2nd behind Mass effect series and just ahead of Borderlands.  So much was right with that game; of course it also had its fair share of flaws.  That said the combat was perfect.  Skill trees could have used work but the combat was spot on.

Mouse is good for pointing and selecting.  Not so good for moving.  Keyboard sucks as a control device - and yes I was exclusively a PC gamer from the post-2600 era until last gen, mainly because the joypad is even more shitty of a controller than the keyboard. 

But once again from what I have heard sacred to was a buggy mess and almost unplayable on consoles. Maybe later patches fixed the game but not something I would use as an example of a game that proves that the genre is better on consoles. Most of the reviews I read on the game said it played better on PC anyway, at least the ones that played both versions and that is surprising as most of the reviewing community is usually pretty console biased. And once again if you preferred gamepad controls you could have just pluged in an xbox controller into your PC.

Weird that your opinion of the game differs from just about everyone else who played it, reviewers, personal friends and random people on the Internet all seem to agree the game was crap with some saying the combat was broken others saying it was interesting but nothing special and others saying it was alright. Then there's you well I never intend to get a 360 and I sure as hell ain't going to buy a game that was almost universally panned if I did, so I am going to have to go with the majority with this one...

The mouse is the best pointing and selecting device currently available and as Diablo style games consist of pretty much entirely pointing and selecting logic states that the genre is suited to the device. As for keyboard  it's not the best for movement as I have said but many Diablo style aRPGs don't use keyboard movement and having half a dozen skills plus potions and in games like dungeon siege pause all within a simple finger movement is often invaluable in this kind of game. Sure you can make do with less but it's ideal to have them all easily available. There are some ergonomic issues but you make some sacrifices...

Anyway I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.