For reference, I played until about level 53 before I uninstalled. The gameplay itself feels good. It's got that Diablo 3 feel, but with a bit more of a MOBA style attack (pressing the skill hotkey and directing it with your mouse and then releasing), which I enjoyed. But after playing for 53 levels I realized that this game is missing the #1 thing that makes ARPGs fun - loot! In 53 levels I owned about 4 or 5 legendary items, but really only found 2 of those. The rest were given through the free battle pass progression, which makes acquiring loot feel really empty. Once I hit around level 40 the story progression basically blocks you off completely until you gain more levels. So hitting 40 would stop my main story quest and my only quest was "reach level 42." Then I'd hit 42 and resume the main story and after completing that part it'd say "reach level 47," etc...This makes leveling to 60 a complete slog, since you have to go do bounties or elder rifts or challenge rifts (which feel like fetch quests, because again, you don't really find ANY loot worth saving). I'd say 97% of what I picked up off the ground was immediately salvaged.
There are so many menus and notifications to click through. There are just so many dang currencies (I think one video stated around 22) that I had no idea what most of them were used for. If you level up 2 or 3 times or finish a quest you are immediately notified via a red dot on a menu like the codex that just has random achievements and other things that you click on or "claim" for battle pass points or hilts or whatever. That makes about 40% of your game time clicking menus and clicking all the notifications. I remember Diablo 3 dev's mantra was something like wanting the player to spend the least amount of time in town as possible, able to continue killing enemies and fighting minions. Looks like this team has the complete opposite viewpoint, as you'll spend more time in menus in a game session than you would in the GTA5 online loading screen - and that thing was loooooong.
There are good things. It's super easy to party up with players for quests or dungeons or raids, and I hope that remains in Diablo IV. Like I said, the gameplay feels fun and the skills were fun to use. The different areas or biomes were really well done, and there were plenty of monsters spawning and respawning so you could kill plenty of things. There should probably be a bit more balance though, as I played a Necromancer and after I picked my first 4 skills, I pretty much never switched that up, as those first 4 skills were by far the best to dominate every set of monsters I encountered.
But in the end for me, loot is king. I really enjoyed Diablo 2 & Diablo 3 and Path of Exile because you just never knew what kind of loot was going to drop during your time in the game. But with this game, I just spent hours and hours finding mediocre blue or yellow items (magic or rare). And it was pretty unclear what half of the stats did for your character: Fortitude, Willpower, Resonance. Those things would change willy nilly with each item change and I never felt any difference in how well I killed enemies.
So maybe pick this up if you're playing super casual here and there and you just want a light diablo experience. But if you're a diehard ARPG fan (Diablo 2, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, Torchlight I & II), you may have a bit of fun in the beginning, but it will turn into a slog pretty quick. Save yourself and just wait until Diablo IV comes out or hop back into PoE. :)
