Going off Blizzcon and the subsequent interviews, it looks like they are to a point. Obviously they are drawing inspiration and fitting in what can fit within their own philosophy. Atmosphere looks to be nailed down and is a better fit for the darkness many fans want.
While they simplified the some main stats into Attack and defense, it appears that they are taking away multipliers, adding +skill points back in, and having the affixes be more important this time around, making the character power split 50/50 between character and gear as opposed to 100% gear in D3. As well as, making sets an option. I like that it was said sets are basically for inexperienced players or those that don’t really want to get to technical with builds. Legendaries will a third way to customize a build. Similar to LoN builds now. Play what you want and find legendaries that enhance it.
End game seems robust, while there really isn’t much you can do, I love the keyed dungeon idea and random events in dungeons as well as dungeon objectives can change each time you enter one making each play through different. With over 100 dungeons planned, that is just a massive amount of different maps. SO it’s should feel much different than farming maps in PoE or GRs in D3.
While all classes share 6 skills, with the different systems each class may have, it should make them all feel different to play. I will admit, at higher levels all of them sort of felt the same in D3, just different colored spell effects and being ranged or melee.
The world being open and pretty huge should bring back that exploration aspect of delving deeper under the chapel, or exploring the large zones in D2. All in all, I liked what I saw, but then I liked D3, D2, and D1, so I’m sure I’ll like D4. But I think it is a step in the right direction for those that were turned off. They will not please everyone though.