I picked this up yesterady, and after a 1.5hr phone call to remove my authenticator, I finally got to play it today. It's pretty fun so far, though whoever decided to host things server side for single player games should be shot. Lagging when playing a single player game is not my idea of a good time. I would have liked some level of character model customization, but it's not something I can't live without. All in all, I'm enjoying many of the changes they've made, and haven't been disappointed in anything other than the server side hosting.

Their argument for having things server-side is to stop piracy and hacking of the game. I have no qualms with someone trying to protect their IP (and by proxy, their bottom line), but to me this smells less like stopping piracy and more like DRM. If you want to stop people from pirating your game and hacking the game to get custom-made gear that in theory should never, ever be generated via the item generator for loot drops, come up with a better solution. Personally I'd just have it be that every 5 minutes the game sends a brief burst of information to an authentication/"black box" program located in the code of the game to make sure your progress through the game isn't insane (like starting off at level 1 and 5 minutes later having a max level toon w/ all unique gear).

As for the game, I'm running a demon hunter, in the middle of Act 2, around level 22 or 23. I'm starting to feel the hunter is a bit underpowered, at least for when it comes to taking out a ton of foes quickly. I seem to end up running out of my mana after every fight and wait for it to regen, and if I get a large zerg of little dudes that jump me or catch me by surprise I'm almost certain to die. The AoEs the hunter has don't do enough damage (grenades, Archery), take too long to go off (bola bombs), too long of a cooldown (circle of knives), or eat up a ton of mana (multi-shot).

I'm not going to get into yet another DRM debate because I've gotten tired of those, but from the company's point of view DRM is about stopping piracy.

Does the game come with some form of level adjuster where a higher level player can drop down to a lower level players? I'd like to group up with people but that doesn't seem likely as I didn't jump on the release day bandwagon.

You can play with them, but I don't think you can delevel yourself.

Have a frind start a new Character he only plays with you?

Thats usually how me and my friend do it when we play mmos and stuff together

The game itself is quite good.

There are some significant changes to the level system.

There is no stat assignment, that is done automatically.

There are no skill points and permanent skill assignment, they instead have certain levels at which skills unlock. Each skill also has runes that can be used to enhance it, which unlock at various levels.

Unless you go into options and turn on elective mode you each button also has a specific slot. So you have primary and secondary attacks on left and right click, and 4 different active skill slots which each have a set of skills that can be used in them.

Elective mode lets you set any of the skills to any of these buttons, so you could have say, two different primary attacks set to your left and right click buttons. And either put your secondary on one of the 4 hotkeys, or not use one at all.

I like the art style, it looks kind of painted at points. And the game is occasionally killing my character since I have been emphasising XP gain over other possibly more important attributes.

Well I broke down and bought it.
Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time to play it, but what I did was fun.

I can tell you it is so awesome to come into video games after being away for so long, because rather than witness the gradual improvement of art, style and depth of game, it is a sudden shock of . . . wow this is really cool.

Anyway, as for the game mechanics and the like, I can't say I have much of an opinion since I have nothing to compare it with. I would like some character customization, but from what I've seen that's not something Diablo ever really had.

I thought that video was awfully predictable up until the last 10 seconds... Unfortunately, I was drinking... now my compy is wet.