I happen to like what Blizz did to the art. It looks appropriate to the game and story. I don't see the resemblance apart from the smoky feel of some zones in WoW. To be fair, wow had several different zones with different atmospheres. It is likely that art from diablo and wow will overlap with wow having so many different zones.

I agree that some maps feel smaller, but I like that they've avoided making every zone the same squarish area like they did in diablo 2. We have variation now (but not so big), and I like that.

The dungeons/interiors are patterns. I seem to remember that random dungeon generation was part of the innovation in diablo 1&2. Well in this one, Blizz just continued. I had hoped that they made the dungeons bigger but when I look back at diablo 2, bigger just meant more repetition in dungeon layout patterns.

With regard to the "dumbing-down", I recently watched a dev video of them explaining why it the abilities were more simplistic. I'll link it up for you.

Yeah, the ability switching is a disappointment. I want blizz to give us the ability to quick switch between single-target and aoe, direct dps and dots. This aspect was a fail.

Diablo 1 & 2 was simply a point and click. I had no reason to expect more in Diablo3. I was actually welcoming the old grind. Yeah, I have no life. lol.

I'm not sure about your hardware problems. I never encountered any of these. Maybe you need windows or vcard updates.

I agree that the required online connection is not really justified. But I can understand where they were coming from. Anti-cheating for multiplayer, implementation of the auctionhouse and quick-cooperative play are really thin reasons to make this online for singleplayer. Especially the launch date connection pains for most players.

I disagree. Diablo is still grim and creepy. Diablo 2 was never realistic in terms of graphics for me so D3 is an art upgrade. I saw the first artwork which was likened to wow but to me the art hate on that first iteration felt stretched to the point of hating just for the sake of hating it.

Well, if you still feel the hatez for this game. I guess there's lots out there like torchlight for you. I'm here partly because of i really want to play D3, friends and it came with my annual sub for wow.