The Good:
The art and sound design is great. While some skills are missing things like lighting effects, overall the game just looks and sounds amazing.
Skills feel good to cast. They have that ‘punchy’ feel that makes a good ARPG more fun and immersive.
The new questing and open world all seem solid. I thought I wouldn’t like ‘World of Diablo’, but here we are. It’s hard to say for sure, since the beta was fairly short, but the structure is certainly there for an engaging endgame open world.
Bosses were also fantastic. A very fresh take on pivotal encounters.
The Bad:
The skill tree. Oh my goodness the skill tree. As it currently stands, I don’t even know why there is one. Putting 5 points into your primary damage spell is just a mandatory damage choice, and passives are, with a few exceptions, an either/or with a second passive behind them. Problem is, aside from the incredibly shallow choices, that most of the choices are little more than a small chance to proc an effect that isn’t even that powerful. Overall a totally anemic and meaningless use of a skill tree.
Now, to give a fair review, we need to talk about legendary powers. This appears to be where choices that would traditionally be in a passive tree have gone. This system is certainly novel and interesting, but there are some serious caveats with that statement. You have to collect the powers, and this part I really like. The issue is, you then slap that on a piece of gear. This means that you can progress with meaningful ‘passive’ powers that actually impact your skills in powerful ways as fast as you can get to the dungeons that contain them. The number of gear slots means that you quicky plateau, though presumably there will be some late game progression here simply due to dungeon location/requirements and chasing the actual legendary items that have the power you want for higher rolls than the dungeon version.
This really seems like off loading all the meaningful choices to gear. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, it’s current implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
Itemization is a topic that I’m concerned about, but without seeing the endgame, it’s hard to say much constructive.
The game is missing a few staple ‘QoL’ mechanics that Diablo itself pioneered. A proper bind to walk would be nice, as the one in game is… odd. The minimap not having a proper overlay mode is also a choice that had me scratching my head.
All this said, I did have fun and will be doing a playthrough of the story at a minimum when the game launches. However, in it’s current state, it holds little long term appeal for me. I hope that this feedback is helpful.