Diablo 3 is the most recent game in the Diablo series. For those of you unaware, Diablo was one of the first generation of what became known as action-RPG's; they took the concept of random dungeons and random gear drops from their Rogue-like predecessors, dropped it into a real-time combat engine, added graphics, and the result was an incredibly addictive and playable genre that competitors rushed to imitate. The sequel, Diablo 2, remained king of the genre for over a decade; it's main success was the huge flexibility you had in building each of the game's five (And, with the expansion, seven) character classes, both using their own innate skill tree and the items found. There have been countless imitators, some better than others, but none really topped Diablo 2.

And then, earlier this year, we got Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 is set years after it's prequel. Evil is gradually beginning to re-emerge, heroes are converging on the town of New Tristram, etc. There is a plot, I guess, and again you'll be traversing the world of Sanctuary, fighting evil wherever it may lurk, and picking up the shiny items it leaves behind after you kick it's ass. And after you've defeated all the evil, you'll... do it all over again, but the evil will be slightly stronger.

Playing the game, first you'll select a character class from the five available. The Barbarian is an aggressive melee combat powerhouse; the Monk is a dexterous, close-ranged fighter; the Demon Hunter is a medium-range gadget specialist; the Wizard is a frail glass cannon; and the Witch Doctor is specialist in summoning and curses. Each of the classes has their own set of skills, which gradually unlock as you increase in character level, and their own power source, which recharges in specific ways. They can also be male or female.

***

I selected Kezzy, the Demon Huntress. She was powered by Hatred, which recharged rapidly and was used for the damaging attacks, and Discipline, which charged slowly and was used for defensive maneuvers.

Something horrible had happened to Kezzy, caused by the demons no doubt. She could only find peace, for seconds at a time, through killing every demon she met. But then, the thoughts would come again.

And it came to pass that she found herself at the gates of New Tristram. "Quick!", yelled the captain. "The dead are rising!"

Kezzy sighed. This was going to be a long night.

***

As you play, your skills gradually become unlocked; everything advancement-wise is based off your character level, which will rise as you defeat evil and earn XP. The game has four difficulty levels; by the end of the first, you'll have all of your major skills available to you. Each skill has a set of five runes, tweaking it into something slightly different, and these gradually unlock until you've reached the level cap (Which will be sometime in the third difficulty level), and you can pick up to six to use in combat. Characters also have a few passive ability slots, with new abilities unlocking right the way to the level cap, again; these enhance your character in certain areas, like giving them innate health-leeching abilities, faster running speed, random special attacks, and the like. Reaching maximum level will probably take about 40 - 50 hours per character, unless you've got some way of specifically rushing your advancement (Like sharing gear from your higher-level characters, or rushing through the game with friends). The five classes are all very distinct, and each will provide a vastly different gameplay experience.

***

Early on, she met a bat, who called itself Obsidian. The little bat had also lot it's family to the demons, and it continually whispered this dark tale to her as they walked the land.

Now Kezzy fought for two. Which was handy, because with the increased Hatred regeneration Obsidian provided, now she could rapid fire for 25% longer without needing to wait and recharge.

***

The core quest will take you across the world, following a variety of main missions. Each area is semi-randomised, with a variety of side dungeons you can go into for extra loot or XP, but there's only one path through the game. Once you've completed it once, on the Normal difficulty setting, you can start again on the Nightmare difficulty... where everything is the same, only with harder monsters. Beat Nightmare and you can go to Hell... where everything is the same, only with harder monsters. Beat Hell and you can go to Inferno... where everything is the same, only with the hardest monsters. Beat Inferno, and you can... go to Inferno, where everything is exactly the same.

***

After defeating Diablo, Kezzy found herself at the gates of New Tristram once more. "Quick!", said the captain. "The dead are rising!"

"I am aware," she replied.

***

As you go, you'll also pick up magical items. You'll frequently be switching out gear for better items that you find as you level up; gear is split into tiers, of which the next tier is better, unless your old stuff had particularly good magical enchantments. Gear is relatively simplified; each class has one core attribute that they want to raise as high as possible (For the Demon Hunter, it's Dexterity), and the power of your class skills is determined by your damage rating - which is based off your class's core attribute, and the damage rating of your current weapon. While gear has other magical properties - steal life on hit, increased chance to stun target, additional statistic points, etc. - in general, you're only going to be interested in a few of those numbers, and a lot of the gear that you find will be absolutely worthless to you. While the gear gets better on the higher difficulties, you'll need it, because the opposition will be better too. You rarely get to feel overpowerred; you're advancing to stay in the same place, relatively speaking.

***

Kezzy had a fine crossbow. It had slain many foes in it's time; she had learnt the rhythm of it's shots, the exact tension required in the trigger. She would trust this bow with her life. She had poured her heart into it many times over the last week.

As the last zombie fell, out of it's dead hands dropped a longbow, accompanied by a TING noise. She picked it up; the firing notches were a little more greased was just a little faster, the string just a little tighter, and she felt more agile just holding it. She dropped her old, worthless, crossbow. She had found a new best friend.

***

"But is Diablo 3 actually fun to play?", you're probably asking, and the answer is... yeah, sort of. The combat is great. The core monster-killing gameplay is visceral, brutal, and working out the right combination of skills for your class and play style is a very interesting process. Because you can switch skills at any time you're not immediately fighting, you've got a lot of flexibility in testing out your character; you can develop your tactics in-play, finding out what works and what doesn't. You'll never reach a point where your previous character-building decisions permanently halt your progress, as can happen in the genre; if you can't advance, you can make changes then and there and see if that helps. If not... well, change something else and try again, or think about your tactics and try approaching the fight a different way.

Fights tend to come in three main varieties; hordes of demon grunts (Who tend to be easy to mow down), a Champion monster and their subordinate pack (The difficulty of which will vary depending on the Champion's abilities), and set-piece boss encounters. Of these, the Champion packs are certainly the most entertaining to fight, as they require the most on-the-fly thinking; they will be given a random set of effects, which boost them and their pack and keep the combat somewhat unpredictable.

The boss battles, meanwhile, are good.  Learning the fight the first few times is fun, but they're simply not as interesting as champion packs due to the predictability of them. There are also a few too many "gear check" bosses, mostly mid-way through the campaign, that simply soak up damage until they die.

***

After defeating Diablo, Kezzy found herself at the gates of New Tristram once more. "Quick!", said the captain. "The dead are rising!"

"Squeak?", said Obsidian. Kezzy hadn't even heard; when the horde began to advance on the town, she was already in firing position.

***

On the other hand... the flip side of not having to play through the game again to fix your mistakes, is that you have to play through the game again just to keep advancing. After you defeat a difficulty level, to keep playing your character, you have to move up to the next, and the only real difference is the levels of the monsters you face. The game's outdoor areas are static and unchanging between playthroughs, with a small variety of dungeon areas and side quests randomly be added to each area. But, you could literally replace the environmental zones with an endless corridor of ever-harder monsters, and the gameplay wouldn't change a bit; the game is almost entirely linear, and - with only one real exception, if you're lucky enough to find it - the side areas all consist of another set of enemies to kill, with a loot container at the end.

The four acts of the campaign are also all relatively front-loaded; the first act (Probably about half the gameplay time) has the more interesting game elements, with the later acts gradually becoming shorter and simpler. When you get bored of Diablo 3, and you will, that's it. There's no "new" content, just varying versions of the same enemies, over again. The monsters do progress as you play though – you'll be facing a lot more ranged foes in the final act, for example – but most fall into a few stock behavior types.

And while you're free to redevelop your character as you go, the way the developmental system works (Through level unlocks) means that you won't have full flexibility until you've been through the game three times... then all that's left for your character is to do it yet again. If you want to start a new character class... you're going to be doing those same it all over again. And again. And again. Once you've completed Normal difficulty with any character, even replaying it with a different class will be trivially easy for you... but you have to spend those tedious hours with every other character class. I found the game actually reached a level of challenge that I enjoyed in the Nightmare difficulty (The second of four), but the thought of having to trudge through Normal, with each class, just to get to the fun part of the game, turned me off; if you're more interested in the harder difficulties still, forget it. There's no way to skip difficulties that you aren't interested in playing any more; you won't even earn any rewards that are worth keeping once you move on to the next difficulty. It's a time tax that you have to pay before you can enjoy the game again.

And at the end of the day, that's the core problem with Diablo 3. It's fun, there just isn't enough content there, and that repetitiveness kills it. While it lasts, it's great, but when you've had enough... that's it for you. Even by the standards of the genre, the amount of content is limited. Oh, sure, there are achievement points available (If you're into that sort of thing), but they all come down to "do everything again". And while each class provides different gameplay, each member of a class will be similar. And if you like it, you can keep replaying the game in the hope of finding better gear... but all you'll be able to do with it is hunt for even better gear.

Five of the game's achievements, one per class, are for getting two characters of that class to maximum level. To get all of those achievements, you'll be playing through the same content, in the same order, thirty times. Accounting for being able to share good loot between characters, you're looking at a few hundred hours of the same maps, the same enemies, the same bosses, the same tactics...

To Blizzard's credit, they did release a patch, to provide more content for people who had maxed out their characters. The patch added another 100 experience levels to the game, so you could keep gaining XP for even longer (But with no new skills, or new areas to fight in). At the time of writing, PvP arena play is scheduled for a later patch.

***

After defeating Diablo, Kezzy found herself at the gates of New Tristram once more. "Quick!", said the captain.

Kezzy didn't even bother to answer him. She drew her hand crossbow, shooting into the air as she walked to the town. Each shot found it's mark; by the time she banged on the gate for admittance, fifteen zombies lay on the ground, a bolt neatly embedded in each one's forehead.

***

For those of you concerned about such things, it has some graphics, and they're quite nice; it's recognizably Blizzard work, but tending far more towards the grim and gothic than the bright and cartoony style of Warcraft. You'll probably need about a medium level of computer to play it, and it comes in Megacorp and Fruit varieties on the same disc. There is sound, too, and even voice acting... which isn't that bad, although still skip-worthy the second time you hear it. It's the genre-standard ting noise, fanfares for achievements, shooty noises, goblin noises; all solid, but uninspiring.

The big hardware requirement, though, is an always-on internet connection. Diablo 3 is, like an MMO, played while connected to Blizzard's servers... and if your connection drops, or is otherwise unavailable, ha ha fuck you, you can't play. This prevents players cheating in some ways, but the big reason for it to exist is the auction house; here, you can buy (And sell!) better gear for your characters, using either in-game gold or real-world cash. The gold auction house is essentially the game's crafting mechanic (And, oddly, the game's crafters are essentially gambling; the gambling mechanic is a waste of time), if you're not happy with your drops, and the real-money auction house... well, if you want to spend money on virtual items, now you can do it without needing to go outside the game. So that's nice. Diablo 3 effectively legitimizes the item trading market that exists in every similar only game, with the publishers now getting a cut as well.

You can even play online with your friends, or with random strangers. All of the usual gang are there; GOGOGO guy,  I-have-no-idea-what-the-fuck-I-am-doing-but-PRETTY-COLOURS-erelda, that quiet guy who joins your game and then has a lie down in the town centre, the D3 PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS GUILD, Jin nóngmín and his forty friends, etc. The only person who didn't get invited was Loot Ninja; everyone online gets their own loot drops from enemies.

***

After an uncomfortable night's sleep in the desert sands, Kezzy woke. She reached to her belt; somehow, during the night, her pack had been emptied of her old weapons, and her coin pouch had been filled with gold.

She didn't think about it any further, as Obsidian squeaked a warning. Time to get back to work.

***

So that's Diablo 3. It's nice and it's pretty and it's violent and oh wow I just went straight through that pack of monsters and I'm enjoying this so much and how many affixes on that pack leader??? and oh cool that's a good weapon I'll use that for a bit and I've just beat Diablo on Hell and then nope what else can I play tonight? The core element of the gameplay, the thing that's intended to keep you replaying it over and over again, the compulsion to push on to see something new... just isn't there, because there isn't anything new to see past that first run, and you know this. You could replace the maps with a corridor, you could replace the gear with "Demon Hunterness +1", "Demon Hunterness +2", etc... and it would be the same game.

When I bought it, I wanted to say that Diablo 3 is a must-buy. I wanted to say that it's the game of the year. I wanted it to define it's genre for the next decade. But it isn't and it isn't and it should but it won't. It's both exciting and bland at the same time. Should you buy it? Maybe. It's a nice hack-and-slash-and-loot game. You'll probably enjoy it. You'll probably kill a lot of monsters, beat Normal or maybe even Nightmare, reach a fight you can't do immediately, and quit. You'll tell yourself that you'll go back to it... but you won't.

***

Kezzy walked into the sunset. She, possibly alone amongst people, knew exactly what she would do with her life. There would always be more demons to kill. There would always be more Tristram's to save. Diablo, the Lord of Terror, would always return.

Some days she had time to ponder; quiet times when she was left to herself. Did she really still hate the demons for what they had done to her? Or was she unable to move on, forced to pretend to feel the same emotions, over and over?

There were nights that she spent, just killing the Butcher over and over and over again. She'd given up rationalising how these monsters could continually reappear. She'd given up all hope that she might make the world a better place. She'd given up pretending to herself that she may kill the last demon. There was a time she kept a diary, a count of all the foes she had slain; nowadays, she just didn't care any more. The demons were without number, she knew that now. There would never be an end to it.

At camp one night, she asked Obsidian why he still travelled with her, and if he felt satisfied with their achievements. When the bat began recounting the tale of how demons killed his family, she drew her crossbow and shot him, neatly, between the eyes. "At least now", she announced to the open sky, "I have bought peace to one troubled soul".

Eventually, Kezzy met a monk. She told the monk how she felt, her dissatisfaction at the repetitiveness of her life, the feeling that her work would never be done. How she had killed more than the demons ever could. How she was the true Lady of Terror.

"lol nub", replied the monk, "stop typing start killing".

Kezzy sighed. She put the point of her crossbow under her chin, and closed her eyes.