I don't really understand the hate on the cartonnish graphics. It's been Blizzards thing for many years now, it's an "accept it or beat it" scenario imo. I only played the beta but it felt pretty good. It wasn't as cartoony as Warcraft but not like the first game either.
The hate happens because their art department used to be top-notch:
http://i.imgur.com/5B2CW.jpg
The
goldskin armor was based off of this armor (attached). It is Henry the VII personal suit. Look at the Diablo 2 armor in any online item list. It looks real, like it came from medieval times in real human history. The weapons are great too.
http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Unique_Body_Armor_(Diablo_II)
Look at the armor and weapons we see in D3. It looks childish. They are retarded. The WoW design team has made it, so there is more stuff that looks childish along with skills/spells that are too showy. They don't necessarily help make the fighting more dynamic or interesting, it is just eye-candy. The spells are moving away from the most martially effective stuff, like raw elemental damage, into stuff that makes a special effect so the WoW players go "Oooh! Shiny!".
The characters look like little cartoon people right out of some anime design studio. And all the kids love it.
It does look like a wow clone. The stone railings and caves are generic WoW set pieces. There is nothing in it to indicate what society the caves belong to, what era/act/tribe/civilization/wizard group. There is no architectural detail to them. There is nothing. They look exactly like all the other caves and catacombs in WoW. They are not memorable, or have any tactile feel because of this. There is no way you can replace the kind of visceral emotional attachment that dungeons like 'The Hole' or "The Spider Cavern' & 'The Maggot Lair' add to the gameplay experience. It is lost. Forever.
In Diablo 2, the details for each environment sprite object were carefully designed to be part of a large, fully-fledged and harmoniously tuned back-story that rivals the complexity of middle-earth. The catacombs in the graveyard after defeating Blood Raven are obviously man made, with a neo-christian gothic construction influence that flows from the ruined buildings, the ruined forts, corrupted sites, the base camp, catacombs and barracks of The Sisters of The Sightless Eye.
Whew. *clears throat* When you make it to Andariel, and into Act 2, you realize that the design team has painstakingly crafted what looks like a complete nation for you to play through in the second act as well, with it's own history, art style, character development complexities (unique to the eastern province social theory), and unique plot devices that don't get ripped off elsewhere in the game (nice).
You don't get that with stuff from Blizzard (South). It all looks the same, plays the same, lacks cultural significance, fails to instill emotion, is not memorable, feels hallow even withstanding a well-stocked rewards system. They suck at their job. They should be ashamed of themselves. Good thing there are enough kids who somehow think they are the largest gaming demographic in town, because the adults know better than to get lost in shitty development title like WoW.
The only thing I can compare the scale of what-the-f*ckery that is going on here, is to reference the loss of quality between Morrowind and Oblivion. It is the same problem we are experiencing here, and it has been discussed at length elsewhere.
The game world in D2 was,what can I call it, ... Psychologically Engineered. Much like the claustrophobic interiors of Doom 3, and the boundless brushed nickel towers and walls of Forerunner architecture in the Halo Universe. It was designed by a mastermind, you can't just get a bachelor's in game design at a community college and replicate that kind of experience and sheer devotion. This game was doomed from the start, once you make that realization, and then the one involving the fact that the game will still set sales records regardless.