This past weekend both Marie and I had a go at the Diablo 3 beta weekend. Impressions? For me it feels like a dumbed down Diablo 2, with higher resolution graphics. That’s about it really.
It’s not bad, but it’s not great. Is it a Diablo game? You bet. Is it worth the $60 US price tag? No. I would wait until this is on sale before buying it. While I still have Torchlight, Diablo 1 & 2 etc, there’s no reason to throw $60 dollars at this game. It’s a $10 game at best.
Although the online aspect could bump the price a bit, I found the lack of offline single player a bit of downer, as I like to go through the story on my own, when teamed with others, it’s just a rush to see who can kill the most. 
Panda’s view:
I tried Diablo I and II back in my younger days, and as I wasn’t a big PC game fan (I’d just gotten used to console RPGs), I didn’t really like them. To my surprise though, I enjoyed the beta of the third one. I liked the simple attack/skill controls with the right and left mouse button (I tend to get confused when there are three hundred different keys you have to push in succession to make a move… I’m exaggerating, but you get what I mean).
Maybe I’m just simple, or it’s simply because I’m just used to having simple commands to perform actions. I don’t really like it when you have to dig through five pages of skill trees to find the one you want to upgrade or have to juggle between ten keys of assigned skills.
TL;DR: I like things to be simple in MMOs/computer games in general, and the gameplay surprisingly didn’t turn me off on this game.
As for the story, I barely know the gist of Diablo I and II, but it kept my interest throughout the beta. I wanted to push forward and get my monk decked out in magic gear to kick the big bad’s butt, and I must say I felt a bit disappointed when “Congratulations! You defeated the Diablo III beta!” flashed on the screen. I’d recommend giving it a try, but based on what I’ve seen, I,d wait until the price for the game goes down a bit, as 60.00$ I find a bit much, I wouldn’t go above 40.00$ for this one.
TL;DR again: I liked the story, but I recommend waiting for the price to drop before buying it, based on what I’ve seen.
