So, I managed to finagle a copy of D2. Simply traded steam stuff for a copy, which.. Still bothers me a bit, but I did want to see it for myself.
At this point I've completed the story, and have reached max level (Not light level.), so I still have tons to do. It took me a handful of hours, including what stuff I tried to skip (Fights that I could run through.). No complaints about that, I think if those tasks took longer I'd be alittle peeved. I have not tried pvp yet.
The game looks good, I play on some mediocre monitors, but with an evga 1080. It is a significant improvement over consoles, particularly D1. Although obvious, I'm still gonna be happy about that no matter what. I'm not too sure about how it looks on consoles today. People say it seems to have been optimized well for PC, and I have to agree to a small extent as I'm constantly at 60fps no matter how much jumbled junk is on screen, the only time it dips is during cut scenes and I'm not sure why but that seems to be pretty standard. According to the in game measurement, I'm using about 2200VRAM out of the 8000+ on my card to run it at 100% resolution.
All the sounds are familiar, on the weapons etc. The soundtrack is pretty good as well, but more aggressive(industrial) than the last release's from what I've paid attention to.
The story is meh imo. nothing particularly exciting about it; though if you played the first one, you know what to expect. And very easy, much of it skippable.
Still a good shooter, if you liked the controls and how the combat handled in the first one you'll like this aspect. The level design is better, much more verticality, twists, and turns. Some pretty awe-inspiring landscapes as well that look really cool. Less wide open, empty spaces from what I've seen. All things that I would've expected from leaving the last gen consoles. I still wish it would be... more so.. More ridiculously large... Need to completely leave consoles behind lol...
I don't know if the art director changed... but many of the armor sets/weapons... I do not care for. Very hit or miss. You might like it though, some of the hunters stuff in particular is very star wars-esque. Think sand-people. For a stretch, my hunter looked like Kanye West in a desert, post-apocalyptic world music video.
So, it's an improvement, but done in such a way to appeal to the most amount of people as possible.
With that said, I enjoy it for what it is. My lively-hood doesn't depend on this game. As long as I had friends to play with, I would make the purchase again with the same sentiment(reluctance). The shooter gameplay is what really solidifies the game as a purchase for me. It really is a good shooter, and my favorite type of game is looters. It does run into the same problems as most shooters when it comes to difficulty, (quantity vs quality of engagements). But as you can see I'm a little biased. I had fun just running around shooting stuff and collecting loot. I'm a simple man.
I'm not gonna go over improvements, as there is enough out there about that.
If you don't want to support the company, I agree.
If you want to play the sequel because you liked D1, I agree.
This game is kind of like what I assume having a ****-up of a son or daughter is like, that's barely not destroying their entirely life, but loving them anyway because they're yours even though you see how much potential they have.