Honestly: Meh.
I got a free copy from a WoW subscription offer and I have probably put about an hour into it. Obviously to each his own, but after playing games like WoW, Age of Conan, Fallout3 and New Vegas, to say nothing of Skyrim I found Diablo3 to be pretty lack-luster.
So “don’t buy any game made after 2010”, in other words. Requiring an internet connection to play is probably one of the less invasive forms of DRM out there, and since the pirate community has ruined PC gaming for everyone, i’d expect to see it become more and more universal unless the internet stops being a thing.
As one of those players who has played 300+ hours into Diablo 3, I’ll state that it’s worth the $60…however, it’s nowhere close to the value that Diablo 2 offered, which I played for years. In Diablo 2, even after you killed the last boss on the hardest difficulty, there were still things to occupy your time: farm for better gear, keep leveling your character to 99, or pvp. Or start anew with another class and try out some wacky new build. By the time I stopped playing I had three accounts full of wonderful and weirdly built characters, like the druid with his superbuff bear summon or the singing barbarian or the necro that could get 80+ minions and cause every other person in multiplayer to lag out. Plus, there was a ladder system that reset itself every six months, so you could start afresh in an environment free of hacked and duped items where everyone was on a level playing field.
In Diablo 3, once you kill Diablo on Inferno, all you can do is farm for better items. Which is pretty pointless, since you already beat the game and there’s no pvp. And the drop rates suck. Like, really bad. In all that time I’ve only found 5 legendary items and one set item. All the “legendary” items were so terrible that I didn’t even use them. There’s no ladder system, so no real competition to reach the max level as fast as you can. So that leaves you with rolling alts–but now every class can freely switch builds, so you only have to do this four more times. Not that it matters, because all the classes only have a few builds that are actually viable to play on inferno difficulty.
Most of my friends have already stopped playing and logging on. If you’re like them, then expect to get about a months worth of entertainment from D3 before you get bored and quit.
I certainly hope not, nothing lasts forever and that applies in a big way to servers and online services. I have my doubts that most companies will continue to actively run and support a title which requires constant online connections if they aren’t profitable, especially if they receive no additional money from the players for that game. The idea of this becoming the standard scares me more than a little, because I see people in 15 or 20 years finding many games of today and the near future difficult or nearly impossible to run. I’m sure future emulation and cracks would make it doable, but this is going to screw over future gamers no matter what, and that I have big problems with.
I’ve been consistently having a lot of fun since release. It has been well, well worth the $60.
Honestly, I would say NOT WORTH IT. I stopped playing even before I beat the game in normal.
For what it’s worth, Blizzard is aware that that the endgame needs work. What they end up doing about it remains to be seen.
From what I understand the amount of people playing D3 has dropped terribly since it started.
I thought it was boring as hell to be honest. The game play hasn’t appreciably changed since D2, and they just switched up skills and inventory, along with revamping the graphics. Otherwise it’s just mow your way through a shitload of bad guys, find out what’s been going on and get to the next stage. There aren’t any appreciable puzzles so far to solve, and on normal, the combat hasn’t even been difficult.
I’d get my money back if I could; this has been the biggest video game let down in a LONG time for me.
I stopped playing after I killed Diablo. The bloody thing wanted me to reply the game multiple times to max out my character, I re-did a few quests at the next difficulty level, got bored and stopped. I clicked my way through most of it, and my ‘talents’ seemed to make very little difference to my kill rate. I vote no, not worth the money.
Well, when it started there were some 6.5 million people playing it, so I would expect that number to drop! I’ts probably the ONLY game where that has been true.
The thing is other than some minor quality of life improvements like getting rid of scrolls and major improvement in graphics quality every single change from D2 to D3 has been for the worse.
I really enjoyed it, but snce beating it on Normal difficulty I’ve had essentially zero interest in playing it again. I went back to playing other games. So, to be honest, I don’t think it’s worth new game price. I wish I’d waited and gotten it cheaper.
If you are comparing it to other video games simply on the basis of “I spent $60 for X hours of gameplay” then yes it’s worth it. You’ll have fun playing through once or twice.
If you’re comparing it to how good Diablo 2 was, and how much replay value it had, then no. Action RPGs by their nature are designed to be played over and over and over again, grinding out new characters and new items. Diablo 3 fails miserably on that account, and like many people, I’ve had no interest in playing it again after getting one character to Hell and a few others through Normal.
I’m in the same boat. In fact, I’ve only even beaten one boss so far.
It’s an incredibly boring, tedious game. I can’t even imagine how much more tedious it becomes on harder difficulties.
I can’t even force myself to pay attention to the storyline.
For me, it was a well crafted and fun experience, until I got my first character to level 60, at which point I realized that the game had as much depth as a cardboard cutout, and that I had already experienced everything the game had to offer. The only way to beat inferno mode is to grind endlessly for loot and money, until your character’s equipment is good enough. Any combination of skills that a smart player could use to get ahead without the requisite grinding is quickly nerfed into oblivion. Diablo 2 at least had replayability, where there were dozens of different ways to play each character class. Now, if you’ve made one barbarian, you’ve already seen everything that class has to offer.
There’s definitely a variety of opinions. I’ve found the game has truly enjoyable gameplay and is much more interesting than D2, which I played intensely for years. I’ve only played Wizard so far in D3 and have been 60 with endgame gear for quite awhile, and I still do not feel like I have unlocked all of the class’ mysteries. There are many, many builds I am getting around to trying.
As noted, this game really is not about leveling up. Personally I am grateful for this. I was an endgame player in D2 as well and found leveling tedious. I rather resented having to spend a weekend getting to 75-80 just to see if an endgame combo actually worked, especially since most of the time, they didn’t. If you liked leveling a lot in D2, you will definitely miss that here.
On the other hand, if you liked figuring out how to use odd and non-obvious combinations of skills and how to make them work at the most difficult stages of the game, then you are in luck. You have far more options here and trying new things is much less costly. Utterly dominant and execrable builds have been thankfully nerfed, but the underlying skills are still quite useful, at least for Wizards. I change up my skills and gear every few days; even though I have only leveled one Wizard, I am far, far away from having played all of them. I haven’t put this much time into playing one game in years.
I can see why people aren’t having fun, though. D3 has the trappings of an action RPG, but deep down, it is a micro-heavy RTS. The macro is in the metagame (gear choice, AH strategy, skill calculations) and the regular game is pure micro. Playing through the acts is like playing different maps on Starcraft. The variation in the game is not really in the maps and the storyline, it’s in the builds and in how good you get at the micro. I don’t think this is necessarily obvious nor appealing, so a lot of people are rightfully turned off by it. But if this sounds like it is your style, I think D3 definitely rewards the time and imagination put in. Contrary to most of the other posters in this thread, I think the game is a somewhat unpolished masterpiece whose flaws are gradually getting smoothed out over time.
I thought it was fun up until about act 2 hell. Then it became stupid hard and a chore to play.
The lack of useful gear dropping is also a drag.
Pvp looks like it will be fun.
All in all, I suppose I got my money’s worth but currently, there is not a lot of replay value for me.
I enjoyed it. Yeah the story was cheesy, but I like being able to instantly respec to experiment with different combos. When I start getting bored with a character, I start a new one. So far I’ve played every character except Barbarian.
Plus you can make a little money on the side- they finally rolled out the Real Money Auction House. Got a rare item? Sell it for a couple of (real) bucks. While it doesn’t have the same amount of content, it isnt the prohibitive time sink that World of Warcraft was for me.
Black magic may bar your way [to enjoying the game] BUT THE WILL OF THE TEMPLAR IS STRONGER 
CNN article on all the whining. http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/10/tech/gaming-gadgets/diablo-iii-player-reactions/index.html
How far video games have come…