Diablo III Art Style Not Going to Change

MTV Multiplayer has kicked up an interview with Diablo III's Jay Wilson, in which the lead designer addresses the game's controversial art style.
Lead (Diablo III) designer Jay Wilson told me that even though 52,000 (Diablo) fans have signed a petition asking Blizzard to return to the darker, more gothic look of the old (Diablo) games, the new, vibrant art style is here to stay.

This is how he put it:

(There's no going back now,) he said during an interview in a Manhattan hotel where Blizzard was showcasing their newest games. (We're very happy with how the art style is. The art team's happy. The company's happy. We really like this art style, and we're not changing it.)

But fans take note: The decision to add color to the macabre world of (Diablo) didn't come lightly. (It's actually the thing we struggled with the most,) Wilson said. When Wilson joined the project two and-a-half years ago, the game was similar-looking to what fans of the old games might expect darker, desaturated and a lot of brown and gray tones. However, translating the game from 2D to 3D with a dark color palette didn't make for the best gameplay experience. The first and second iterations of the art direction had a (modern, gritty look) but made it difficult to distinguish enemies from the environment. (When you have 30 creatures on screen and four or five different types target prioritization is a factor,) he said. (You need to be able to tell those things apart fast, and you can't do that when your world is gray and your creatures are gray.)