Took me something to get this all down. First off, I’ve played D1 and D2 when I was a teenager in the late 90s. D1 was just very simple but addictive. Just keep going lower catacomb levels until you reach Hell iirc. D2 was the best of the series with proper storyline, world building, interesting characters, classes and bosses. Played D3 for a bit and completed the main campaign with Barb but stopped there. It was fun but it didn’t draw me back to replay. To this note, although I’m a fan of the series, I’m not a hardcore player.
Now for the D4 Beta for PC, although I’ve played the series before, played the entire Beta on T1 Adventure just to understand the mechanics and get a casual feel of the game. Brought both classes Barbarian and Necromancer to level 25 and completing the Act 1 campaign. Let me now give my neutral and fact based opinions.
1) Graphics - 10/10
Top notch. The weather elements, shadows, blood spill physics, etc all felt so lifelike and fluid, the Diablo series have certainly come a long way.
2) Sound - 9/10
Again pretty good, from the barrels being cracked open to the sounds of skeletons being crushed, the so familiar sounds of the D series have evolved and became better.
3) Music - 9/10
Again, also top notched. The score can turn to an urgent tune when you enter boss fights and the other times, the sad/sorrowful tunes just fit the dark ambience to a T.
4) Gameplay: Character Customization - 5/10
Now we get to gameplay and character customization is lacking. I understand the design is for certain classes archetype to have certain body builds but you still can do that with a slider range or a few presets within those values. This has been done by various MMOs like Guild Wars 2 etc. Don’t get me started on hairstyles and body tatts lol.
5) Gameplay: Classes - 8/10
Having played both Barb and Necro and their class mechanics are so so different and unique, it feels refreshing to play both and have a switch up on the play-style and pacing. Will touch on the two individual classes later on but the different mechanics here means you won’t feel bored and uninspired to play a different class (ahem D3 ahem).
6) Gameplay: Skill Tree - 6/10
I’d admit at first glance the Skill Tree looks little underwhelming and it looks too linear to be a Skill “Tree”. As you start gaining levels and look at what skills benefit the build you wanna play, you start paying attention to each Skills details. The UI presented in a single path with stubs around the category visually it makes people feel uninspired at the start. I think after I got pass that initial phase and focus on the details, it makes me slightly excited on where to place my next Skill point.
The main gripe I have is many skills giving an absolute number which sucks (+3 maximum Essence, is this a joke?), skills should instead of a percentage or ratio that scales up with Character Level! I mean our enemies scale up their level so why aren’t our skills scaling up as well?
A smaller issue is that Skill Tree UI is of no help for the multitude category of skills, I can’t figure out at a glance which skills augments and/or create synergy which other skills. Will touch more on the UI later on.
7) Gameplay: Itemization - 7/10
The good thing about items so far is that they give lots of different stats and benefits, on the flip side, it’s so confusing for the casual gamer to figure out if Critical Damage or Overpower Damage is more important and which one procs more often, etc. That said, being able to add/remove Aspects to/from Legendary items is a smart move. This allows us to move these Aspects to items with better affixes and convert them to that sweet sweet Legendary. I understand that the drop rate for Legendary is increased for this Beta and the actual game won’t have such insane drops. This would be good thing since finding legendary items should be very rare.
8) Gameplay: Open World - 6/10
Although I understand that Open World allows more social interaction in D4 (I haven’t seen anyone try to interact with me) and for us to fight in events together, on the flipside, there may be overpowered characters destroying all the mobs just before you started exploring the new area, it kills the immersion of the game. Would prefer the following portion where Open World takes place and the rest of the game, it’s a solo or MP (by invite) experience only:
a) World Boss fights
b) Event instances
c) Towns/Conquered Strongholds
Uncertain if this will be difficult to implement, just a suggestion.
9) Gameplay: Barbarian - 7/10
Initially, the Barb was tough to play and very imbalance class. When I first fought X’Fal and used up all my potions, I thought I might have screwed up my skill tree. It took me a few more tough fights, one death by Den Mother that I realized the Barb needed variety of skills to make this class enjoyable. Initially I was just sinking my points in Frenzy and Double Swing. Later on, I got more Defensive skills and the build is now pretty solid. Ground Stomp, Kick, Leap (stun and knockback are useful skills) and most important of all: Thorns. With 253 Thorns, mobs can almost one shot themselves, just need to soak up the damage with higher armor and health. Not sure how this scales in later levels but as stated earlier, I wish skills would give benefits in percentages or ratio instead of full numbers. This will ensure better level scaling in late game.
Another issue I had with the Barb was that it had the worse Legendary drops ever! Only 3 Legendary and all on the same item type! Booooo! Even the Curiosity vendor gave only blues and whites, occasionally one yellow item. This Barb must have some rotten luck lol and those who said gears will define your character is somewhat right. I wanted a high HP, Thorns and Str Barb so I just looked for items that boosted those stats. The rest were just filler until something better comes along.
TLDR: It was a challenging playthrough with the Barb and it took some effort to build and grow to a class that I recognize. It’s still painfully slow to clear mobs and bosses but it is what it is and hopefully the full game with Paragon skills and Legendary items/aspects will make Barb a stronger class.
10) Gameplay: Necromancer - 8/10
This class was a walk in the park. I had 5 Skirmishers and 5 Mages (+2 from legendary item) before getting the Golem. Would say that Lilith’s Lament was the strongest so far to destroy all 5 of my Skirmishers. Other bosses took less effort to kill and Dungeon bosses are not a challenge. The Butcher almost got me though and reminded me that minions are useless if bosses have super high health or have high Thorns (this was also an issue in D2 in champion/elite boss fights with Thorns).
The Necro found so much Legendary items, way more than the Barb. Barb got 3 drops and all three where the same 2 handed weapon type! 
My Necro on the other hand got 9 and were assorted gears. The only thing I didn’t like about this class, minions can sometimes stand there and not attack enemies until they hit me lol. There’s also no way to direct which enemy should minions attack first (at least not that I know of).
TLDR: Wayyyy more efficient and viable build than the Barb and clears through mobs and bosses like knife to butter. 2 things I didn’t like are minions sometimes don’t attack enemies until my Necro got attacked first and there doesn’t seem to be any way to direct which enemy should minions attack first or prioritize.
11) Game Mechanics: Class Unique Ability - 9/10
I think this is the highlight for all classes, their unique ability really makes them play differently. I like how the Barb gains better bonuses if constantly using the same weapon types and the different upgrades for Necro skeletons, both enhance their gameplay and adds strategic depth to building the Character. Shame didn’t get to do the Priority Quest for the Barb it would have rewarded with something great.
12) Game Mechanics: Dungeons - 4/10
Uhm, boring and nope, just nope. Going through the same process to unlock doors to fight the Dungeon boss is so boring and repetitive just after a few rounds. Make Dungeons bigger, add in a few side-quests and achievements to unlock. Otherwise I can’t see this as the Endgame content for players. BORING.
13) Game Mechanics: Events - 5/10
Meh, nothing great nor bad but I wouldn’t say this is interesting at all. The only time I did World Events is when I have to pass through the damn place or took a wrong turn. Yikes! Looks like I have to do this now. The rewards are boring and the fights are uninspiring as well. The worst thing is, some events take place in a common looking area, no special landmarks, no special lore or quests given. You just stumble upon it and either get out or get it over and done with. Yawn, are we there yet?
14) Game Mechanics: Inventory- 6/10
Really poor UI/UX coming from Diablo series. Everything looks so cramp in the inventory screen and I can’t even view my character detailed stats easily. The only good about the inventory is all items just take up one inventory slot. That said, I hope we can expand our inventory storage with pouches or additional backpack etc.
15) Game Mechanics: Skill Slots, Potions & Evade - 6/10
6 skill slots are insufficient (it’s actually 4 if you don’t count your primary and secondary attacks!). Give us option to customize additional slots if we want to or remove it when not needed.
I understand we can increase our number of Health Potions via Renown Quests but trying to get Blood Orbs (which disappears very quickly) when used up all potions is risky and very troublesome, especially during Boss fights. Blood Orbs tend to drop on areas of acid pools or within reach of the Boss attacks. Why can’t we store the additional potions in our inventory? I know D3 already uses this mechanics but it’s really hard for melee characters when their classes are so imbalanced and they consume potions like water during certain fights.
Evade is a new mechanic and it’s pretty awesome to dodge unwanted attacks and gears give additional charges. It saved me plenty of times before during encounter with the Butcher lol 
15) Game Mechanics: General UI/UX - 6/10
Expected a more intuitive interface and better experience from this series. The inventory and character sheet should take up more space on the display. I understand the design element to occupy only a small portion of the screen, so we could see the rest of the display of our character in the world. In this situation, it’s better to split the Character screen from the Inventory screen. That way more could be displayed without sacrificing lost of graphics and details.
Another bad design was the Skill Tree display which also was clustered to one corner of the screen and we had the option to expand the Skill Tree which distorted the display when we did that. My suggestions is to either open the entire Skill Tree in extended display by default or when we extend the Skill Tree display, recenter the focus in the middle of the screen to what we were previously viewing.
I also understand that this game was designed for Console version in mind but really, not fully utilizing the shortcuts on the keyboard from numeric 1 to 0 and F1 to F12 by default, is a wasted opportunity for PC Master Race. 
That’s enough for me for the UI/UX, there are still some improvements I wish D4 had but it isn’t that bad for me.
In Conclusion - 6.5/10: My overall verdict that D4 Beta is ok but needs more work to be done on balancing melee for lower level characters and some improvement to the boring game mechanics. I missed the World Boss Event due to trying my hands on another class, rarely have much time to play around with all the login issues and limited playtime over the weekends (who knew adulthood and parenthood was so tough 
). Somehow I’m actually looking forward to launch date at 2nd Jun and can’t wait to start!
My 2 Obols
NEW UPDATES!!!
Added a few more feedback on Game Mechanics that was missing on the first post
16) Game Mechanics: Blacksmith - 6/10
Salvaging is one of the core feature of the Blacksmith. It allows us to dissemble items into usable materials which we can use to improve existing ones. It also allows us to transmog which is a key feature for salvaging. Some items are just plain ugly but decent stats, that’s where transmog comes into play. I can see Blizz milking us for money in cosmetics of gears and weapons.
Repair is as before in the Diablo series, repairing the durability of our gear after recent death. I like how items only drops in durability from death and not from normal usage. It was a chore in D2 to keep returning to town to repair your gears cos you were wearing them out.
Upgrade Item allows us to improve the existing affixes of the item by spending gold and using materials. This mechanic allows to keep rare/legendary items that has “expired” to be kept in play until something significantly better.
Overall the Blacksmith is one of the common stops many players will go to after coming into town. I wish there was a shortcut button to “salvage all magical/rare/legendary items that give new transmog” or “salvage all unequipped items in inventory” for quicker Salvaging. This applies to the Armor, Weapons and Accessories vendors in D4. Why can’t we have a quick sell all Normal/Magical/Rare/Legendary items button for faster transaction? Because of this, it gets a decent score but nothing great about it.
17) Game Mechanics: Jeweler - 7/10
Craft Gem improves the quality of the gems we find in Sanctuary and this process is simple yet efficient. Clicking on the gem you want to improve, it shows you the total number of gems that could be improved. It counts the gem amount (you need 3 gems of same quality type to upgrade to the next level) and gold cost per upgrade of that gem. At a single glance you can tell the total amount and cost, very quick and efficient.
Unsocket allows us to extract gems without sacrificing the item! Yes you heard it right, item fully refunded to us, but at a cost of gold.
Add Socket allows us to add a socket to any item we want but requires Scattered Prisms that are dropped only by World Bosses. Didn’t do any World Boss fights so didn’t get to test this out. This is one reason good reason to go for World Boss I guess.
Upgrade Item here is similar to the Blacksmith but for Accessories like rings and amulets.
Jeweler is a very useful NPC that I wish every town has one like the Blacksmith that unfortunately doesn’t. Gem drops are quite frequent so it’s great that we get to unlock this NPC early on in the game. It adds more layers of strategy to the player. Allowing us to unsocket items without destroying the item is a huge win for this mechanic and for that, it deserves a better score.
18) Game Mechanics: Alchemist - 5/10
Upgrade Potion allows us to improve the healing effects of consuming Healing Potions at the cost of plant materials only. However, this is locked by Character level.
Craft Elixir allows us to create Elixir consumables that boost our Character stats for a duration of time. It costs gold and plant materials per bottle of Elixir to be crafted. I was expecting this NPC allow us to craft Healing Potions which we could keep in our inventory, unfortunately a wasted opportunity here. Suggestion to Blizz, let us craft a “Healing Potion Cache” similar to Resource Cache after Quest Completion, right clicking this Cache drops Blood Orbs on the ground which we can then use.
Refine Resource changes the excess materials we have into another material which we might have a shortage, with some cost in gold.
The Alchemist is a wasted opportunity, thought it would allow us to craft Healing Potions into a Cache that we can use as Blood Orbs on the fly. I think other than Upgrade Potion that matters, the other features are meh. Would give this game mechanic a 5 because of this.
19) Game Mechanics: Occultist - 8/10
Imprint Aspect is great feature that makes this game great. Putting an Aspect into our gear changes how we can play the game. It turns Rare items into Legendary and gives motivation to farm better gear to Imprint valuable affix.
Extract Aspect takes out the special affix from Legendary items and turns it into an Aspect which can then be used to Imprint onto a more powerful version of the item essentially “upgrading” it. Doing this however destroys the Legendary and creating an Aspect.
Craft and Salvage Sigil is something new that turns Sigil Powder and gold into Nightmare Sigil for turning up the challenge of all Dungeons. Haven’t touch this so can’t comment but I think it’s only available in World Tier 3 and above so unless you go onto Nightmare difficulty, you might not use this feature.
Finally Enchant Item allows us to select one affix on Rare or Legendary which we don’t want and reroll it with a random affix. We can do this indefinitely as long as we have the gold to do so, the cost will increase with each reroll. This feature is great cos there’s always that almost perfect item with one affix that makes you go meh and you have a ton of gold, you can try your hands on the Jackpot machine of Enchant Item.
The best NPC vendor of the lot especially for midgame and endgame. My guess is the Occultist will be as busy as the Blacksmith at later levels. Imprint and Extract Aspects are great mechanic feature and Enchant Item as well.
20) Game Mechanics: Purveyor of Curiosities - SEE BELOW FOR NEW OPINION
Totally underwhelming NPC vendor other than selling Whispering Keys, gambling with Obols on “Unidentified” items is a waste of time. In both my character playthroughs, none of them got Legendary drop after spending all my Obols. The best drop I got was ONE SINGLE RARE ITEM. Better to spend your Obols on Whispering Keys to open Silent Chests might yield better items drops. 1/10 from me, totally trash.
Again, my 2 Obols
NEW SERVER SLAM UPDATES!!!
20) Game Mechanics: Purveyor of Curiosities - 7/10
Not sure if Bliz made major changes here or I got lucky but the rare and legendary item drop rate is higher now! Bought 7 items 3 were normal, 2 magical, 1 rare and finally 1 legendary item for Sorc! Let’s hope this is a good place to spend our precious Obols.
21) Gameplay: Sorceress - 9/10
After the patch, the Sorceress feels a very well balanced class (granted I didn’t play the Sorc in the first 2 beta but feedback was that this class was way too easy). Not a cakewalk but neither was it too difficult to overcome enemies. Was expecting to get killed by Den Mother but was able to survive her and with 2 potions left. Made a Frost Sorc with Frozen Orb + Ice Blades + Blizzard as main damage and I must say she was incredibly powerful. Often freezing enemies, popping them up was easy. This Sorc also was very lucky with Rare drops and just after Nevesk, I already had 3 Rare items!! Got my first Legendary from Purveyor vendor and another 3 more from Ashava drops. Had a few more Rare drops and this playthrough felt luckier than my previous Barb & Necro runs.
The only issue I face was trying to find raw materials for my Armor upgrades which was surprising to me. Had a hard time finding Superior Leather and savaging Magical and unwanted Rare Armor gave very little Superior Leather. Tried to farm Polar Bears, Werewolves (Warg & Volkodlak) and Frostwings but found very little material drops. Only Frostwings gave Superior Leather drops, again another surprising fact.
TLDR: Played as Frost Sorc and it was a fun build, not difficult and often times not that easy either. Great drops, found lots of Rare gear which I could use and gotten 4 Legendaries in this run. Only issue was crafting materials which I had a shortage of, which didn’t happen to me from my first 2 games in earlier Beta. Perhaps they didn’t had that much Rares and Legendaries so I wasn’t upgrading them frequently. In previous games, I was always short of gold for some reason and this run didn’t face such issue.
22) Gameplay: Druid - 7/10
First run with Druid and it felt pretty decent. I didn’t get her to level 20 so couldn’t say I had “fully” experienced the build but got the hang of the build. Was trying for an elemental Earth build so she got a little bit of range damage before enemies close in. Landslide was doing major damage and those enemies that survive the attack are usually stun, letting you continue range damage.
Initially thought she would struggle with the first boss inside Icehowl Ruins but wasn’t. Since she could do range damage, I could easily dodge X’fal attacks and strike from a distance. Even when he was running back to his summoning circle, I could still hit him and killed him while he was “mid air” lol.
TLDR: Played as an elemental Earth Druid and it was an interesting build, choosing range attack instead of melee. Didn’t get to explore more on this build, only got her up to level 6 in KVS and it was end of Server Slam. Couldn’t comment more but with Druid but getting passives for resistances and other strong defensive skills, I’d say this class could be a good tanky class.
23) World Boss: Ashava - 10/10
First time doing Ashava and got my behind handed to me for the first round. Died 5 times making very silly mistakes, standing in her swipe radius, standing in front of her when she was going to spew poison clouds etc. Thankfully the group that I was with were elites and knew what they were doing. The Rogues basically dealt the most damage on Ashava and all of them carried me. Not ashamed of saying it out, I was a benefactor of their competency. 10/10 would do it again with these groups of elites whoever you are.
24) Wardrobe - 6/10
Gonna keep this short, why can’t we choose the color palette on currently equipped gear? Why do we need to salvage and transmog before able to color palette those transmog looks? What if I’m wearing a Legendary and wanted a color change but couldn’t find similar looking Legendary item? Please give us this option to change the color on currently equipped gear. Also allow in-game shop for more color palette options! I want a royal blue and passion pink color schemes! lol
My final 2 Obols
Thank you for reading, hope to see you in-game at launch