Diablo III Preview

The Daily Aztec is offering a preview for the upcoming Diablo threequel, and seem to be pretty pleased with Blizzard's attempt to recapture the spirit of Diablo II judging by the tone of the piece. Here's a snip:
The gore is definitely intact. As gamers fight their way through enemies, they will see them explode, be decapitated and suffer any number of other gruesome deaths.

A new skill system has been implemented that no longer requires long, arduous amounts of time plotting out where to place every skill point gained with each level. Instead, users simply gain a predetermined amount of stats, get a new ability or rune and can be on their way.

The interaction between skills and runes is fun enough in the beta, giving users a few choices regarding how they want to face their enemies. For example, the Barbarian has a (cleave) ability, which normally includes attacking multiple enemies. Once gamers get their first rune, it does its normal attack, along with the bonus of causing enemies who die via cleaving to explode. And there are four other runes still to unlock as progression is made toward level 60. There's a massive amount of unique abilities to harness as gamers level higher up. Crafting is part of the game, and it feels like it will serve well at lower levels, but past that it is questionable how well it'll hold up.