 Leave it to the angels to screw things up again. Only two of the major leaders of Hell remain. After a fight that lasted for far too long, a shooting star beckons evil forward once again. This time it's up to a lone hero to turn the forces of evil before the angels decide to decimate Sanctuary and leave the planet free of both demons and humans forever.
1. Gameplay
For PC gamers, Diablo 3’s release was extremely controversial. Console gamers should definitely consider giving this game a try (its loot system is pretty addictive and the game is much more consistently fun than Destiny), but even I couldn’t help but be disappointed by certain aspects of this game. There are definitely some awesome elements that I am really glad were included, but Diablo 3 isn’t quite the same RPG as the previous Diablo games. Overall, though, it’s fun and worth playing (although maybe not for $60).  You too will become obsessed with amulets and rings. Diablo 3 is by far the simplest and most user-friendly game in the franchise, which to newcomers and console gamers is a good thing. You’ll still have to understand some basic math (100 damage > 70 damage, etc.), but you won’t have to worry about picking the right powers or accidentally upgrading something when you really wanted something else. Diablo 3 never locks you into anything. One minute you can be summoning minions to help you fight enemies, the next you can be using a lightning storm to do it yourself. The only thing you have to choose is your character type, after that it’s smooth sailing. This is both one of the game’s greatest strengths and its greatest weaknesses. I never had to worry about accidentally choosing the wrong power, picking something that was useless for my playstyle. Yet, at the same time, there’s no reason to replay my class again. I could replay the game with a different class (since the abilities are very different), but once I have a Crusader the first one will always be as good as any other.  Wait, wat? There were complaints about the looting system in this game but by the time I started playing this seems to have been ironed out. I might be a bit frustrated at the overabundance of blue items (the lowest quality of magical items), but I’ve managed to just about deck out my character in legendary items despite playing on “normal” difficulty. And that’s the sort of give and take that Diablo 3 has. It has pissed off hardcore fans who call it too watered down (which, in some ways, is legitimate), but I can’t help but love the accessibility and simplicity of the new design choices.  A figure that Diablo 2 fans will recognize. There’s only two things that I consider serious gripes about this game. The first is the level design. While I consider the somewhat smaller, more linear levels to be a vast improvement from Diablo 2’s designs (I can’t count how many times I got lost in a huge swath of similar looking sand or grass), they are a far cry from the dark, creepy, claustrophobic corridors from Diablo 1. D1’s level design made me scared just to take a corner or open a door. Where D1 made you feel like you were deep underground on your way to fight through Hell, D3 makes you feel like you’re constantly far above the fray, on the edge of the cliffs looking out into oblivion. Personally, I prefer to be scared of the forces of Hell (and the places in which they hide). The other thing is the story (or lack thereof). Diablo’s story has been decent in the past, but this game is seriously oversimplified. You have to trap the last two lords of Hell into a soulstone, people die, you’ll fight Diablo. The previous games did a good job of setting up the final battles. This game’s story was just a sidenote that felt shoehorned into the rest of the events. Compared to the parallel stories in Diablo 2 or the complex and interesting story currently playing out in Starcraft 2, this feels like the weakest Blizzard story I have seen yet.  Link gets a sword. I get advice. All that aside, this game is very good. It includes coop, the loot system felt functional, and the dungeon crawling felt less like a crawl and more like a constant search for enemies to kill. I enjoyed almost every moment of this game and would have likely enjoyed it even more if I played with a friend. While I might lament the death of the PC-related components of this game, I don’t think this franchise is lost forever. It’s just different.
This is by far the shortest Diablo game I have ever played, but there is an asterisk to this statement. The game recommended that I play on “normal” (which the difficulty I usually use), but normal was almost unfairly easy. I basically never took damage. I didn’t get the “you have taken damage” tooltip until act 3 (of 4+). So I was basically walking through most of the game. Keep in mind that this game is also designed for replayability. I only got to level 50 or so in my first playthrough, and since there are 70 levels in total I have plenty left to do. There’s a fairly significant expansion pack out now, plus the original 4 acts can be replayed on higher difficulty levels. Considering the game is also designed to be played cooperatively with other people, there is plenty left to do. I am going through the expansion pack and still enjoying myself. If the loot drops on a replay are properly leveled for my character I could see going through the game again. This would be especially true if I could play with a friend.
Consoles won’t have to worry about this problem, but the PC version of this game has to be connected to the internet in order to play. This can be extremely problematic, especially if you’re playing during a particularly spotty time period. There was one instance where I my internet was disconnected for a moment (not more than a few seconds) and I was booted from my game. I am fortunate enough to always have a fairly stable internet connection, but the few times when this became an issue were very frustrating (especially considering I was playing in a match by myself). This problem manifested itself in other ways as well. I’m not sure if this problem plagues consoles as well, but I experienced times of lag during my single-player runthrough. I would try to cast a spell, and sometimes it would delay a second or two before actually performing the action. This may seem like a small issue, but when you’re surrounded by high level enemies or trying to attack an enemy that is especially quick, this can be extremely frustrating (and potentially the difference between life and death). EDIT: This should have been the end of it. In my entire time playing I was only disconnected once. And then, while I was playing, Blizzard was DDoS’d. (If you don’t know what that means, google it). If this were pretty much any other game (including Starcraft 2) this would not have been a problem. I was playing single-player game on my computer and wasn’t actively using any online features. However, Blizzard’s archaic anti-piracy measures meant that this hiccup in their service resulted in my complete inability to play the game for well over an hour. No chance to save, no warning about the interruption, no chance to resume exactly where you left off.  This... is a problem... This system they have developed is fatally flawed. It punishes legitimate users worse than the pirates that the system is designed to work against. There are far better systems of anti-piracy in place (Starcraft 2’s system comes to mind). As I said before, console players will never have to worry about this, but I will hesistate before I ever recommend this game to PC players. 2. Parental Notices
Violence is by far the most important factor in this game, mostly because it’s one of the only things the player will do on a regular basis. And while the violence can be filled with blood and gore, there can be a number of factors that mute the impact. Hits from any weapon or ability will result in blood. If an enemy dies, they will usually be dismembered or gore will be shown in some way.  I'm not hacking up dead villagers, I promise. The likelihood and amount of gore can increase if the player performs an especially brutal attack. However, it seemed like many attacks would simply cause a dying enemy to disintegrate and leave nothing behind. Either way, bodies seemed to quickly disappear after combat was over.  This screenshot from early in the game is still fairly representative of the rest of the game. But the blood and gore is hidden by a number of elements. First, enemies tend to stand on top of each other, making it extremely difficult to see the dead enemies from the living ones (since the living enemies will always be visible over dead enemies). Second, the player’s abilities usually cause very flashy and obvious magical effects that both mask the underlying effects and hide the enemies from view. And finally, most of the ground and worldspaces were either dark, had brown / red terrain, or both, which significantly masked the usually red blood.  This and the hell-like areas disguised the blood fairly well. There were certain times when the gore was much more obvious than others. The goat men tended to be decapitated much more often than other enemy types, and their heads would go rolling away for some distance. There was also a hidden area that is designed to look like a kid’s fantasy world. Gore is especially obvious in these locations.  Sorry Bessy, I couldn't save you this time.
Sexuality is sometimes implied in certain conversations but, for the most part, it’s nonexistent. There’s only one section of the game where this really changes. Eventually the player will begin to fight the forces of the demon of lust. This particular demon is a giant half-woman half-spider, the literal embodiment of the “black widow”. Most of her underlings are either spiders or relatively “normal” demons, but she does command a classic Diablo minion called the Succubus. These female demons are topless as they fight. While in the original Diablo game it was much easier to notice their ample chest regions, I found it rather difficult to get a screenshot of this (since they were always moving and, once dead, hardly ever showed their bodies.  They're probably French. That being said, these creatures are definitely topless and basically wear metal bikini underwear. It may be difficult to notice initially, but these monsters are unavoidable towards the end of the game.
Health potions are really the only substance in the game and their use will depend entirely on how often the player is in near-death situations. On my runthrough I never had to use a single health potion, since many of my weapons and armor had magical attributes that regenerated my health. There is no animation for using a health potion.
Gambling is not a factor in this game. 3. Other Factors
There are no modding tools available for this game.
Religion plays a critical role in this game’s plot. It’s so essential that both the story and many of the characters simply couldn’t exist without religion. The entire plot revolves around angels fighting with demons over the population of earth. The player will constantly fight against the worst demons that Hell has to offer. He will fight his way through a crater directly into the mouth of Hell, then claw his way back out and fight demons past the pearly gates of Heaven. The only way this game could include any more religion is if the player was Jesus.  I love the angels' wings. And yet, this game is not based on the Christian ideas of Heaven and Hell. The player might be fighting demons and, ultimately, Diablo (aka the Devil), but the way that the lore is written seems to exclude God completely. The game’s lore indicates that Heaven and Hell were created by the two ultimate embodiments of good and evil mortally wounding each other. It never mentions God anywhere that I could find. But there are an abundance of angels and demons of all sorts and with specific roles in the game. Diablo is the lord of hate, but he’s only one of seven lords of sin in the game. Diablo might be the biggest and baddest (after all, the game is named after him), but he’s not the only evil creature the player will face off against.
One of the critical plot points has to do with Tyreal’s possible disobedience of the angelic order. The ruling angels don’t want to become involved with humanity. Tyreal decides to shed his grace and become mortal in order to save Earth from the demons of Hell. One of the potential companions is a “scoundrel”. Basically, he’s a thief whose backstory reflects his past lifestyle. He talks about how his crime-related activities affected his life, but he doesn’t actually do any anti-law actions in the game.
What’s left of this game’s community is fairly self-contained. The coop experience seems to be designed best for friends. There were some people playing online, but these tended to be high-level players (far beyond my current abilities). I don’t think anyone would be turned away from playing with other people.
Despite some characters’ ability to jump extremely high and ride flaming horses of doom, I struggled to find anything in this game that would qualify as extreme sports. As a result, extreme sports are not a factor in this game.
If religion is the critical part of this game’s story, magic is the critical part of this game’s mechanics. I picked the Crusader, which is usually a much more melee-oriented character, choosing to rely on sharp swords rather than on spells. Yet every single one of my attacks and abilities was magical in some way. Even my basic attack involved some sort of special magical ability.  Magic always comes with a price. On top of that, almost every piece of armor will have magical attributes. These attributes usually just increase the player’s stats, but sometimes they can cause extra magical effects. For example, I gave my companion an axe that could summon a ghost beast that attacks alongside us. Almost every moment of this game includes magic in some way. It could be as simple as teleporting from location to location to as grandiose and complicated as supporting the entire superstructure of wherever the player was located.
There are no additional factors in this game.
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