Diablo 3: The TLDR review

Are your ears still ringing? Blizzard is singing, “Do re mi. Over 6 million copies of Diablo 3 sold.”, and the teeming masses of Blizzard otaku are screaming like a bunch of hysterical prepubescent teens at a Jonas Brothers concert.

The Blizzard fanbois and goils have spoken: It’s like the bestest game ever, dude, and don’t you just love the way his bangs hang over his eyes?

Is Diablo 3 that good? Is it worthy of the hysteria?

TLDR answer: Not really.

TLDR review:
Diablo 3 is a solid action role-playing game (ARPG) with fun, dynamic combat, but it’s not particularly innovative and after a while, the gaming action starts to feel repetitive. Though dungeons are randomly generated, they begin to take on a been-there-done-that feel, after just a few days of playing.

Diablo 3 lacks character customization. Retro is one thing, but gamers like to design and play their own characters. It’s more an irksome issue than a huge strike against the game, but it is just one of the ways this game isn’t worth the hysteria.

The DRM always-on connection requirement causes so many problems it detracts from the gaming. There was the now infamous Error 37, which prevented players from playing the game on the release night. There are lag spikes even in the single-player game, plus disconnects happen too often.

Gold-seller spam is starting to take over general chat, which makes you wonder how well the DRM “innovation” is really working.

The Auction House appears to be constantly broken and down for some new repair.

The loot tables need to be fixed. Gold drops, supposedly rare items, are fairly common once you get to a high enough level. Blue items, the low-level magic items, are plentiful and, probably because they drop so often, are usually better than gold items. This takes some of the fun out of the loot grind – kinda one of the goals of an ARPG – and it greatly undermines the auction house.

TLDR score: 7.5 out of 10.

Diablo 3 is a decent ARPG. You’ll have fun with it for about a month, then you’ll probably tire of it. Unlike StarCraft II, it does nothing to move its respective gaming genre forward, and, in fact, the added annoyances of the constant online problems and the poor loot tables set the genre back.

If you’ve been around long enough, you know there’s nothing especially new about a boy band like the Jonas Brothers, and if you’ve played enough video games you know there’s nothing especially new about an ARPG like Diablo 3.