Diablo III Team Loves Torchlight and Borderlands

I'm not sure if the interviewer was expecting them to go "no we hate it", but art director Christian Lichner confides in Eurogamer that the teams loved Diablo-likes/clones Borderlands and Torchlight.
"We play those and we generally love them," said art director Christian Lichtner when Eurogamer asked what the team thought of games knowingly riding Diablo's coat tails. "Torchlight we love it, we play it a lot."

Lichtner then went on to single out Gearbox's 2009 first-person shooter Borderlands as another office favourite.

"I'd say Borderlands is inspired a little by Diablo we love Borderlands," he said, before explaining how keeping an eye on the likes of Torchlight can help in the development process.

"It's always great. We love it, we talk about it, we scrutinise them from a gameplay standpoint to see what we can learn, to see what they've improved on. It's all good as far as we're concerned."