Diablo 3

This is a great game overall, the mistaken impression that it's too easy quickly goes away when you play far enough into the game. There is one major problem with it though: you must be online and connected to their server to be able to play, even as a single player game. A few issues stem from this:

**If your internet is down, or if you want to take your laptop on holidays, or to a more remote area without a connection, or on a plane, or in many other situations where you might find yourself without a connection, but would like to pass the time by playing it, you can't do it at all.

**If you have a connection but their server is down, or the game is being "patched" or "updated" on their end, which can take the whole day , you can't play either (Actually, the server is down as I write this, so I can't play right now). This can happen in the middle of the game, at which point you start to get little warnings that the server will shut down in so and so many minutes.

**If in some 15 or 20 years you want to revisit the game, or show your kids etc.., but by then the company has decided to take the server down because the game would then be too old, or if the company is out business etc.., the game would be lost. It feels like the $60 is for a long term rent, rather than a tangible ownership of a game than you can physically install on your machine and boot it whenever and wherever you want it.

Bottom line: I don't regret buying it and recommend it to anyone (casual and experienced gamers alike), because the game itself is great, well developed, providing hours and hours of fun (when you actually get to play it) - However, be very aware of this limitation and be prepared for some sighing when you can't connect to their server. I know nothing about computer programming and this is probably not even possible, but maybe one day there will be a patch that will allow the game to be played offline too, the old-fashioned way?

I bought Diablo 3 opening night. Glossing over the fact that Blizzard was entirely unprepared to handle the server strain from everyone attempting to login simultaneously, I had fun with the game at first. And then that romantic twelve-year-wait fuzzy feeling subsided and I saw the game for what it really was.

Diablo 3 is Blizzard's master plan to make as much money as possible. And it is brilliant. The entire game revolves around the Real Money Auction House. In fact, it feels as if the game itself is just a side-bar to the auction house. Here's the kicker: for each item transaction, Blizzard takes a 15% cut. To put this into perspective, there are items listed for $250 on the auction house. When one of these babies sells, Blizzard takes $37.50. Item drop rates are horrendous, forcing players that want to continue in the end-game to use the auction house or spend hours upon hours farming in the hopes of lucking out with the random number generator. In the last patch, Blizzard completely nerfed an item attribute. The problem with this was the real money auction house had already been out for a few weeks, and people had bought items specifically for this stat. This is the equivalent of buying a sound system in a store only to have the company knock on your door a few days later and take away one of your speakers. People are beginning to realize the sheer capacity for Blizzard to make millions of dollars from the auction house.

The only problem is they forgot to make a game that was worth playing. In order for people to use the real money auction house, there must be an excellent game along with it in which players want to use the items they buy. This is where Blizzard went horribly wrong. Twelve years in the making, and Diablo 3 is inferior to its predecessor in nearly every way except for graphics. The storyline is horrendous, filled with overused cliches, characters lacking basic common sense and laughable villains, both in appearance and action. Each act gets worse, showing less and less polish and thought. The city hubs are nothing like those in the previous game which were filled with detail and life. The music is so lackluster as to be almost entirely unnoticeable. Character customization is non-existent. Every character of a class gets access to the exact same spells and spell variants which they can switch out at will. This means the only distinguishing feature between yourself and another character of the same class is the items you don yourself with. While in theory the variety of spells is a good idea, in practise it fails- most characters stick to the same set because it is required to make any progress in inferno mode, rendering all other skills useless. There are four difficulty levels in the game. This wouldn't be a problem if the storyline were half-decent or there was an open world mode where after beating the game on normal difficulty you could roam free, unchained by the extremely linear game design. Alas this is not so- you have to suffer through it multiple times, and skipping cutscenes has never been more of an annoyance. Even after hearing player complaints, Blizzard continues to make poorly thought out changes to the game.

If you are curious to experience for yourself the failure that is Diablo 3, and the extreme degree to which a company I used to love sold out, then by all means buy this game. Otherwise stay far, far away. Reading all the articles slamming Blizzard is more fun than you'll have playing the actual game.

Look. This is a Diablo game. Which means it's a good game.

But enough about that.

This game needs a always-on internet connection to play. In single player. That's right. My internet was out all day today so I had to sit and stare at the game disc, wishing in vain that I could play a SINGLE-PLAYER game. This is pathetic. It's anti-consumer. It reeks of a lack of respect for customers. They want our money and yet they want to control what we do.

Stay away from this game. We have to make a stand against such policies or very soon you will find yourself stuck at home with a stack of single-player games that won't work because your internet connection is out.

Ridiculous. Shame on you, Blizzard.