OK....

So I originally was't going to reply with my own two cents on this, but I feel so passionately about this game that I felt it was worth my time and voice despite all the great replies already. This will probably be TLDR, but i will try to make it worth reading and as short as possible.

Growing up, Diablo II was by far the game my friends and I played the most. We spent countless weekends having LAN parties and playing Diablo II. What kept us going? A few specific things, but to say that we bought this game more then once each because of lost copies or ruined discs is a huge compliment to the original development team of Diablo II

So here is what made Diablo II great - ALL of which Diablo III lacks.

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1. Skill trees locked points, so each character had to be played through more then once to use different sets of gear that was being found in addition to different sets of skills. Mixed builds got you nowhere and concluded in a weak character. This required dedication within one build per character. Skill balancing / damage percentages were also locked and unchanged by the development team.

2. Hours could be put into a character and the best gear could be had. After 300+ hours of playing, your progress was safe, and you could feel accomplished and move to another character and skill build with the option to go to your other (past) complete characters if you wanted to help a buddy or reminece with that characters skills and damage.

3. In Diablo II, parts of the game are repetitive, and parts of the game are not. There are a few unique pieces of landscapes like the stones in Act 1, or some of the areas remembered in Act 2 that kept re-playing interesting (Westmarch in Act 5 of Diablo III made this comeback, but not the rest of the Act). Who can forget the cow level and the words of cows chasing you "moo MOOoo Moooooo" and a portal being made just in time to get your adrenaline going?!

4. Portals could be shared and dropped anywhere and reused from both sides until the original maker went through it. This provided much entertainment from being chased by hoards of enimies surrounded by darkness of the unknown (more adrenaline).

5. If i wanted to waste all my money, I could spam potions and live! Or still spam potions and die as would happen often! I also rarely heard the "I am out of ______ (mana, discipline etc)" because i could also refill that by the press of a button.

6. Items didn't change. Builds didn't break. Items and builds were added or gained the potential to become better with each update. The game creators respected players progress.

7. Amazing Items could be traded and my friends and I worked together to get the sets we wanted almost like a collective treasure hunt. We also worked as a team to get amazing items from boss drops that everyone would click furiously over. (more adrenaline rush)(anyone remember their mouse hand hurting from the furious clicking?). Also who else was nerdy enough to make a spreadsheet with friends to inventory your collective horde of items? (I'm guilty).

7. The game was dark. Light radius mattered. Who would want to go in some of those caves and places alone when you couldn't see who lurked around the corner? eeeeeEEEEP! For example like not knowing which wing the butcher would appear in and running into him out of the blue! (Adrenaline rush).

8. Other players were easier to help, play with, and meet with a max game player number at 8 rather then 4.

So those are the core strengths that kept my friends and I playing Diablo II.
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So what happened with Diablo III that made us all quit with no sign of returning?

The core of that answer is this:

--- "The player is being frivolously disrespected by the game developers." Let me explain.---

When my friends and I play our characters for days (months, years), we get to a place where we become happy with the build on a character and playing the character is finally fun and enjoyable. The character wrecks hell on everything and moves at a quick pace. Life is great right? WRONG! In Diablo III, the build is then broken, and the items all become useless. Where did all that 300+ hours of game play go? Down the toilet. And to think I was just about to go start another character, but instead the developers just broke my main character. And don't tell me Paragon points make up for this issue. Those points are stupid. NOBODY likes WASTED TIME! (even if it is a game and an illusion that we are actually accomplishing something).

I can't be the only person that looks at the list of classes when creating a new character and can't decide what is even worth the hours because nothing sticks. Skills and damage all change every update it seems. This has happened at least THREE times since Diablo III released with some of the changes that have surfaced to skills and legendary build changing items.

I don't need to go into the negatives of diablo III because i listed the positives from Diablo II that Diablo III lacks above.

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I will say this however as a closing statement:

-Change the skill trees so they lock. Make characters more unique and the players progress matter more. Make the players value having more characters because of these forced differences. Right now character building feels like a wash. Right now there is no point to have more then one character of each class if that, and one build per class because right when you complete one amazing item set on one character an update is released that breaks the build and renders the items you just finished customizing and rolling stats on for months useless.

-Stop slapping players in the face with this "the development team feels...." and make our progress mean something. If you can do that, most of your player base will return.

Again, I want to like this game, I want to love this game. But nobody likes starting over every time there is an update.