Why I'm not buying Diablo IV

Have I established that I'm a Diablo II super-junkie yet? No other game has captivated me quite like Diablo II. On a different note, no game has ever disappointed me more than Diablo III. 

   I haven't played the Diablo IV full release and I'll explain why I might not ever. I DID however, play about 20 hours of it in the pre-release server-slam. Those 20 hours showed me all I needed to know about whether Blizzard was giving Diablo back to its original fanbase. I'll keep it short: They're not. 

  I wasn't sorely disappointed this time, because I went into Diablo IV cautiously optimistic no matter how much "We're taking it back to its roots" rhetoric Blizzard dressed its promotions in. I kind of just knew it was rhetoric and nothing more. 

   I'll give it one thing, though. It was better than Diablo III. It's not that Diablo

IV isn't a good game in general, it's just not the "back to its roots" sequel it was promised to be. 

  You can tell that Diablo III is still the core model for it. They really just "dimmed the lights" a bit and said "Look, it's dark again!". 

I'm going to be honest. I wanted them to ditch the design aspects of Diablo III completely. I wanted them to make this game what Diablo III should have been instead. I wanted the massive complex loot tables back. The focus on an open PvP element to return. I wanted the grid inventory, procedurally generated maps, several awesome cinematics to the story, health-on-pickup mechanic to go away, dps calculated on items to go away, the skill-trees to come back, and so on. I wanted this game to be a middle finger to Jay Wilson's bastardization of the franchise and a love-letter to David Brevik's masterpiece. 

Instead, they compromised, and let me tell you, the Diablo II side got far less from it. 

Look, I still own Diablo and Diablo II. Diablo II: Resurrected is still great. I will gladly & gratefully still play those. The truth is, even if Diablo IV had delivered all of those things, it still would have fallen short of Diablo II. 

A friend of mine, after watching the finale of his favorite anime, Attack on Titan, said "I will never watch a show that good again". Similarly, I will never play another game as good as Diablo II. So I'll stick to it. It's fine. I don't need a Diablo IV and I damn sure don't need Jay Wilson's Diablo that he turned into his crusty wank-sock.