Why Diablo II fails(Warning: Opinion)

When I finally got my hands on Diablo II I was sure it was going to blow my mind and/or my head off with sheer awesomeness. Installing it was a kind of ritual, getting ready to witness astonishment that can make my head explode.

As you can tell from the title of this post, it did not happen. Boredom came in quick, around Act II. Starting from this point I prayed that it might get only better. It only got worse. The goddamn-wtf-were-they-thinking midgets from the jungle made me say that they raped my childhood memories. The game was horrible. Then came Act IV, a lot better than the previous ones, but still not even comparable with the Hell of Diablo I. Lord of Destruction was a bit better. A bit.

What failed:

1. The atmosphere. Along with this comes level design whose, because it's random, only purpose is creating proper atmosphere; and music but it will be discussed separately. Level design(things like textures, random bodies on the floor etc.) sucks monkey c*ck. In the first Diablo the whole fricking game was creepy as hell. And speaking of Hell, the one in Diablo II has to be the most stereotypical Hell ever. Fire and brimstone. In Diablo I you were walking on something that looked like flesh, walls were made of bones and between them were seas of blood. What is more original and intimidating?

...

I thought so.

2. The music. I'm not going to rant about Matt Uelmen's performance in Diablo II, because he did well WITH WHAT HE HAD TO WORK WITH. Upon seeing the environments there is no way any man could compose music any better than this man. Most of the tracks are kind of dull and seem uninspired, because the environment where the music plays is like that. The Diablo I tracks are classic, legendary. There were only 6 tracks(8 with Hellfire) and each and every one of them is magnificent.

3. The skill system. Oh dear Lord. The system seems fine. Until you realize that throughout the whole goddamn game(or until level 99) you use up to 3-4 spells. 3-4 spells. In Diablo I, being a sorcerer, you had 3 spells from the VERY BEGINNING. Of course by the end of the game most of the time you'd use Chain Lightning and Fireball, but you still had a sh*tload of other spells to break the boredom, which is impossible in DII through the way the skill system works. The lvl 1 spells are completely useless when you are facing mobs which take several hits of a lvl 10 Fireball. In DII there is no freaking way to even change the build unless you are single player only and use the Hero Editor, which is considered by some to be cheating. One mistake and hey, you just lost a priceless skill point, GG, start over. What were they thinking?

All this, especially the retarded skill system, caused pain. Pain that made me finish the game only 1 and 3/4 times. I gave the game a second chance recently, after several years. It still sucks. Not that much like the first time, but it becomes dull incredibly fast.

I believe I know why so many people love it. However, I can't. I just can't. It failed for me.