Well now that I can go all out, here's my review.
Gripes: Level design lacks variety, enemies lack variety, subscriber content is both enough to want to pay for and at the same time not enough to want to pay for. Also the story is FAR inferior to Diablo II in EVERY way. The custscenes SUCK.
Glees: Feels very similar to Diablo II, classes are varied alot with very different moves, and the loot system is even better developed than it was in Diablo II.
In-Depth:
Lack of Level Design Variety: The game (being made by the original creators of Diablo II) utilizes the same random dungeon concept, but in 3-D. However, while it does this well, the level "grids" themselves are VERY bland. There's none of those neat little details they put in Diablo II...there's not nearly as much atmosphere, no blood and demon guts lying about like there was in the catacombs or kickass mummies like in Tal Rasha's tomb. They have the same tilesets EVERYWHERE and it all gets VERY old VERY fast.
Lack of Enemy Variety: In Diablo II you could argue that many of the enemies were exactly the same, just attacking you when you got close and requiring you to hit them. But they had variation to them in both graphics and tactics much of the time. But as far as I can tell in Hellgate: London (I only played to act 4 of 5 before stopping, about 20 hours worth between 4 characters) the enemies consist of the same enemy types in every area in every act. Imps make up the majority of things you will face. Each area does have several enemies types...maybe 10 in all that I can think of off the top of my head. But the problem is, by the time you reach act 4 you've seen EVERYTHING. The enemies barely change AT ALL between acts.
Story: Remember those kickass cutscenes in Diablo II? Not in Hellgate. Remember the engaging dialogue and fully voiced NPCs that lent so much to the world of D2 that just made you keep coming back for more? Well in Hellgate the NPCs are not voiced, all of the side-quests are the same without affecting the story at all, and all of the main plot is told through long textual interactions with a single person in each act. There's no immersion, and little discernable plot. From what I can tell, there's these 5 sage people called "truths" that keep telling you there's a way to stop the invasion. At the same time in Act 4 there's this guy that's foolishly trying to stage an organized strike for his own personal gain even though it's a suicide mission....erhm...that's all I can get out of it after 4 acts of playing. Oh, there was this crazy demon that attached itself to a guy's head feeding him information about these "truths" for a while. But that didn't last long enough. He was funy.
Subscriber Content: The game comes in 2 varieties. Subscriber, and Non-subscriber. Subscriptions are 10 dollars a month and they allow you access to "exclusive content". So far this content is limited to a single new area, I don't know quite how big it is since I dont' subscribe, a new boss, and a few new enemy types. As I understand it, that's some good stuff. But they only release new content every few months, and the way I see it, there's just not enough there to make me want to keep PLAYING for a few months, much less PAY THEM to play for a few months. All in all the non-subscribers get alot out of it, they get the full 5 act game (as bland as it may be) and access to online (just not in the new area).
Now the good parts.
Yes it feels alot like Diablo II. Initially this had me REALLY excited. But the problem is, that I got bored of the game EXTREMELY quickly. It has a class system very much like D2, and while it was unbalanced in the beginning, the team has been working VERY hard to fix that. So far 3 of the classes have been completely reworked and they are, for the most part, BETTER. This kind of improvement and work on the devs part is VERY encouraging and I like that very much. And like I said the loot is even better than in D2. There's TONS of different weapons for all classes. The variety of weapons offers much variability of play that just isn't present in the levels or the enemies. You can upgrade your equipment so it can stay with you for quite a while, or you can break it down into pieces and use that to craft NEW stuff. You almost NEVER sell things in Hellgate: London. You break it down and make stuff you can USE. That's the biggest thing the game has going for it in my opinion.
Overall, the game isn't BAD, it just doesn't have enough going for it to keep my interest for very long...I played it for a good 2 weeks and for the first week it was really good. But then when things started to get repetative...when I started seeing the same enemies over and over and the same tilesets over and over...well...I just didn't feel like playing anymore. The gameplay wasn't engaging enough to keep my interest, the story wasn't interesting enough to make me want to READ all that for it, and the graphics (while good technically) didn't have the same atmosphere that got me so engaged in the Diablo II world. Overall, it tries very hard to be like Diablo II, but fails, and it tries very hard to feel like an MMO, but there it both succeeds AND fails. It has all the elements of an MMO...shallow unengaging "go fetch me so many of that" quests that artificially lengthen an already barren game...and at the same time it doesn't have the group play or PvP elements that people love about an MMO. There's just not enough to keep the game going.
