"Overall, it looks and feels great. It "is" Diablo, which was something I was a little worried that it might not be when the first screenshots were released. The overall feel is great, the gore is perfect (very great eew factor on some of the enemies presented), the transitions between dungeons, caves, and open areas are very nicely done.
The level advancement is quick. Very quick, in fact, compared with the amount of level progression shown to be available in the future late game to the speed at which one reaches lvl 13. Just quick enough to feel a little too hasty. That and if the beta is the entire first act, the game feels very compressed and constrained, almost to the point of lacking substance relative to previous Diablo games.
Diablo two took forever to finish each act, as they were broken into several sub acts which some areas took the better part of an afternoon to fully complete. If this was the whole first act, it only took a couple of hours to finish solo, about 50min (or shorter) in co-op as everyone just races to the end goal of killing the skeleton king. I know in previous Diablo's that would be a good part one of Act I, but if that is all of act one... I worry for the rest of the game.
Now I realize this is the beta, and I'm really hopping that it's only the tippy tip of the iceberg, but if each act is relatively the same length, then it's going to be a rather quick and possibly short lived game. I really hope my instincts are just wrong on this. I would hate for this to be a 5-10hr casual game. I long for the previous Diablo style of being a hard core 30-70hr plus game. What I'm trying to say, is that I hope this game doesn't severally suffer from a lack of muchness.
Back to the good, the use of particle effects and lighting are stunning throughout the whole game. Everything is just wonderful (and some times disgustingly so) to look at. Each class feels unique and has appropriate pros and cons. Everything is mostly balanced and just needs minor tweaks here and there.
One of the big things I enjoyed was the slew of abilities your given to choose from. It's not a choice between what's most dps blah blah blah, it's more "what is the style that you enjoy". THAT little extra bit of customization, to have 2 or 3 of the same class in a party and each one with different abilities, was nice. And changing abilities was no hassle at all. A small cool down, but it wasn't too penalizing, allowing you to swap for situations on the fly.
Crafting is pretty straight forward and simple (it just needs to have more "class specific" items to fill in the giant level gaps. Like first class equipment, such as ceremonial dagger/mojo/source/wand, are strange. Some don't even start until lvl 16-20. Starting one at lvl 6 and you don't get any upgrade until lvl 24 seems a little excessive, leaving those players with little luck in finding rare items in the dust). Good number of enemy types in this first section, I hope it keeps evolving along those lines throughout the game.
Absolutely love the use of physics engine. Love how the levels crumble and explode all over, very well done. I enjoyed the spoken lore as you kill each enemy type. Hearing the various characters describe them in detail was very nice (and done in a very delicious Eternal Darkness style, which horror-esque games lack these days, which is a damn shame). Voice acting's good, ambiance is good, story is good so far, conveyance was clear and to the point, I do want to know what happens after the skelly-bones king. Yeah, so far so good.
And as a final side note: Getting a feel for the Monk class makes me very excited for the next wow expansion."
--N00basaurus
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