"I knew Diablo II, and you sir, are NO Diablo II!..."
I'll say at least these few positives about it:
With the several (and some are huge, over 600 MB's in size…) patches out there, I didn't experience the many crash bugs that previous reviewers in this website had indicated as major show-stoppers for them.
The general theory and concept of the game, with its initial general/basic mechanics at the entry level and enormous game world was all for intents and purposes, a basically good one…
But man, it sure didn't deliver after just a short time playing:
The in depth story line failed to live up to its billing, whether or not that's a failure of a taking a European game (with its different audience and initial language development than North American games…), I won't say, but just be aware, it's not the first euro-game that's crashed and burned with American audiences due to a hypbolic emphasis on story line.
After 10+ hours play, I'd really like to be fully aware of the ultimate aim of this game, and that was not at all made manifestly clear with the site/personnel visited. The initial writing and direction of the main quest totally sucked.
The "Tutorial Mode" for first time users is a complete oxymoron, no explanation of what you're doing at times with game mechanics, other than some very concise and brief pop-ups, that have more in common with road signs than anything else, comparatively speaking.
The Manual is an absolute mess in many sections, referencing paragraphs and pages that are completely wrong or just plain missing, and shown screen shots that don't match up with anything referenced on the same page. Totally unhelpful. After 10+ hours of play, I still have no idea about the runes and buffs upgrade conditions other than just by trial and error, as to when I can use them and when I can't, and why I can and cannot make combat combinations. Absolutely nothing mentioned in the manual. Completely worthless…
Movement around the massive game world is often not easy as the mouse pointer doesn't match up with location indicated, causing strange movement. If one wishes to see easy movement around a huge game work, try playing "Two Worlds"….
Last but definitely not least, the camera view is also worthless in tight dungeon environs. At least Diablo II didn't block your view in dungeons so you could not figure out whether or not you were being attacked, or whom to attack, because in this game the dungeon walls blocked your view in real time combat. I died too many times unnecessarily simply because I could not change the camera view quickly enough to cover and react to everything, An utter joke….
I lasted far longer with the first Sacred RPG than I did with this one, and from a general game mechanics standpoint, while not a good game, Sacred 1 was a better one than this follow-up.
So lately, I guess I've now become a bit "jaded" about recent action RPG;s that make the overt claim to be the next "Diablo Clone" (not necessarily "Killer"...) while we're all awaiting the release of Diablo III (and I guess that's not for a while yet…). This game does not even come close. If one wants to find a recent Diablo II-like- diversion until Diablo III (finally) does come out, recommend trying Titan Quest and it Immortal Throne Expansion. Until then, I'm still looking….