Regardless of what you think about which game is better than what.
The facts of the matter are clear.
Every single Diablo but this one is has a replayable campaign (I forget if 1 can but lets be honest, it was like 1995 and it was the foundation for the entire series).
Diablo 4 does not have that option.
Diablo 3 you could play it again and again on harder difficulties. Some bosses only dropping certain things on harder difficulties.
Both 2 and 3 had secret levels only accessible through some convoluted (but loved by all) grinding.
And why were those secret levels added?? Because of all the Rumours about a Diablo 1 Cow level.
The devs added that in because they loved the meme and they truly cared.
Both games expanded on the Diablo universe with exceptional amounts of lore. Diablo 3 had audible lore in almost every single dungeon. Even if it was just Cain reading about some ugly goblin lol
He’d tell you why it was ugly and some backstory. And you could listen to that wonderful old man talk while you fought your way through a dungeon.
You rescue some old dude from a barrel and he shares his story with you about why he was there, then you find his apprentice.
You go to Caldeum and find zoltun kulle, you learn about his life story through audible lore.
You run through the end game of RoS and you find bits of text that expand on the lore.
Diablo 4 has none of that.
You get the same dialogue from events over and over.
“help were trapped. we couldnt have done this without you.”
“wheres my kid/mom. you left me alone.”
I think it was near the end of the game when running through the desert when I heard some people talking about a lost amulet, or all the atrocities going on in Caldeum.
But there was no quest around that, you don’t find the amulet for them.
In town it’s all just useless bits of dialogue that are few and far between.
But there is a bunch of written stuff, ish, most of it is just observations like “theres a warm bowl of food here for the priest to hand out”.
I honestly wouldn’t even care at this point if they recycled every bit of audible lore from D2 and D3. At least it would be something.
Whether you love the gameplay or not, whether you think one was worse than the other or not, the facts are that the world itself never felt hollow or rushed. There were minor details that truly made each game memorable.
You could replay the campaign over and over, even if it was just burning through to watch the cinematics, or Diablo 2 even had the option to JUST watch cinematics lol
They made books and put the game into novel format, they actually cared about the game, the world, the story, and the players.
This game is a hollow ripoff and is quite honestly, tied with that abysmal mobile game.
When they released the mobile and the crowd booed, the dude said “whats the matter, dont you have phones.”
That same ignorant, out-of-touch mindset completely took over the franchise it seems, and this was the result:
A soulless, hollow game, with a shorter campaign and less cinematics than the RoS expansion for D3.
The longest cinematic that was essentially the game’s trailer lol
The campaigns could be played again and again with the same character. D3 allowing you to play the game on whatever difficulty at any point, i believe, it’s been some time.
And it’s not like the option cant be made, or that it is too much work.
I have 3 hours of gameplay recorded of me replaying the campaign when I bugged the game out.
(im done with the main discussion. more on the bugged playthrough ahead)
I joined my friend’s prologue campaign. I left him to run around a little and infinitely shadow strike the easy enemies with the extra jump imbuement (very fun lots of lolz).
I ended up clearing a stronghold he didn’t have access to, it booted him out, I switched to world tier 3 in Kyovoshad, and did a few legion events before I realized I had the campaign quests still.
So out of curiosity, I continued them. I managed to get all the way to battling Lilith before I got the all too familiar bug where youre unable to attack, teleport, dash, use skills, its. But you can move and progress.
At which point I reluctantly logged out, and when I logged back in I was at the sealed doorway (post lilith) and my game was back to normal.
what was interesting was every area except the one with the campaign quest was scaled to world tier 3. The quest area of course would move from area to area depending on progression, but each time, the quest area would be scaled to world tier 2.
The interesting part was that even though it was scaled down, I still would get champion aura enemies. And only the outer map itself was affected by this. Going into a dungeon would scale the enemies up, and the loot they dropped would be scaled down, unless it was a sacred legendary.
And even when the game isnt bugged, when you go to a stronghold youve not done, youre fighting enemies and doing all that, meanwhile, everyone that HAS completed it, theyre all chilling monster free, neither party visible to the other until youve completed it. Then suddenly a dozen people appear.
The foundation to replay the campaign WITH THE SAME CHARACTER is there.
Even things like post campaign content are accessible even before beating the game. Like world bosses and legion events.
They still happen on the map regardless of completion. You wont get a notification (if you call the little easily missed blip a notification), but if you follow a twitter account that tweets out the location, youll be able to join no problem (because relying on some dude to sit at their desk and check in every 5-9 hours is apparently what blizzard expects “dont you guys have a clock” lol).
Anyways. Thats my thoughts.
If I’d known the campaign quests couldnt be replayed, and the campaign would be so incredibly short and devoid of life, I wouldnt have bought the game.
I enjoy the Diablo series because of the lore, the incredible detail of their take on the occult and the church, the raw portrayal of blind faith, and I suppose the depth of the story.
Diablo 4 has that, yes. the story and the above. But it is nothing in comparison to the rest of the series. And what little there is, was pretty much all seen in the two trailers…
also… lol… idk if this was the same for anyone else, but the subtitles were like 2 sentences ahead of the cinematics for me.
So yeah… an incomplete game riddled with bugs from start to finish, recycled content that’s slightly polished, repetitve world bosses you need only stand in the middle of and dodge occasionally, with a shorter campaign and less cinematics than the RoS expansion.
Yes it has new things like Helltides and the tree of whispers, but really, theyre just glorified ways of getting the same loot you can just buy with obols…
It just seems like they didnt really care and sold a game purely off the success and hype of the previous games.
most of you will need this to wipe your faces 
because all your half brained comments were gone over in my essay that was like a minute and a half to read lol