Really?

I played the game a while back (it released in 2013) so perhaps things are different now.

I was playing from Sacrifice of the Vaal up to Ascendancy myself and was actually thinking it might be a new addition, so I looked through releases since 2.2.0. but there's nothing, either. Maybe it's a beta thing, but when I played, you had other players in towns, parties, the arena and the occasional open pvp race, but nowhere else. Seems it's still the case now.

To be honest, I'm rather curious now where/how this could have happened.

Titan Quest: 10/10
The best ARPG I have played. Perfect setting, gameplay and you can learn a lot of history from this game too. Also has extremely good class system.

Grim Dawn: 9/10
Very closely behind Titan Quest, mostly due to the unattractive setting. Would I rather go kill generic Aetherial boss number 3 or Lernean Hydra? The answer is obvious. But GD is great fun, at least until level 90 where you start getting 1 skill point instead of 2 for some reason, making levelling more counterproductive than anything due to enemies automatically scaling.

Diablo 2: 9/10 (after SP mods)
A good game and after you mod it for single player (game is too balanced around multiplayer in vanilla) it is a very good ARPG. But definitely not the holy grail most people seem to think it is.

Diablo 1: 8.5/10
A very good game with extremely good atmosphere. Pity there is not much replayability.

Van Helsing: 8.5/10
Was a very nice surprise. The dialogue between Helsing and Katarina was engaging, but that of course gets old after the first playthrough. 1 and 2 are definitely worth playing as you can transfer your character between them. 3 changed too much and was probably the weakest of them all.

Nox:8/10
Deceptively fun. Especially like that it feels like a true single player experience.

Sacred 2: 8/10
One of the largest worlds I have ever seen. Becomes too grindy at some point though. Almost no incentive to play on higher difficulties.

Silverfall:7.5/10
Finished it once long time ago. Had fun with it. Strangest thing happened to me. I found a legendary crossbow like 10-15% into the game and didn't change that weapon until the end of the game. That is literally the only thing I remember....

Dungeon Siege: 7.5/10
Very linear and repetitive, but you feel progression as you go through the game.

Path of Exile: 7.5/10
Too multiplayer oriented. Not my cup of tea but very complex and has some original ideas like skill gems.

Diablo 3: 6/10
The RPG part in ARPG is very questionable. No character building whatsoever. You play the gear, not the character. The game is just endless grinding and doing trillions of damage with an attack becomes boring after a while when enemies have quadrillions of HP.....

Torchlight: 5/10
After hearing nothing but praise, I was very disappointed after playing it. Forced myself to get to the end of the game once and died through the last boss. Uninstalled immediately after.

Played many more, but can't say much about them. Legend: Hand of God, Loki, Sacred 1, Divine Divinity. They all felt pretty average to me.

The only one I'm looking forward to trying is the new Warhammer 40K ARPG. Inquisitor or something,

Yeah, that's definitely not how it works. Not sure what happened to you. Remembering a different game, perhaps?

You have to have been entering MP instances, because venturing out of the hubs automatically generate single player instances. It literally does not generate multi-maps without you making the option yourself. How long ago was this?
This. You don't generate MP instances by default. So this had to have been quite awhile ago, as I've been playing a little longer than SotV myself, all the way up to whatever just updated Sunday afternoon. (I haven't checked out the new season yet, so no spoilers, plox.) :D

I thought I may have gotten the game wrong so I double-checked and it was Path of Exile. Maybe it was a glitch - it's not like games don't release these days with tons of bugs and get patched all the time.

I tried it out and that one moment just killed the game for me. That and the ARPG genre made a comeback and PoE came out at around the same time as Grim Dawn and Torchlight II so I went and played those instead.

The first TL is ok, but nothing spectacular.

The second one is vastly improved, though for some people still seems not to be their cup of tea due to the art style or whatever. But the actual gameplay, builds, and combat are much, much better in TL2.

I always find very funny the way the improvements between Torchlight 1 & 2 kind of mirror the ones between Diablo 1 & 2 ;)

Anyone care to comment on:

Aarklash Legacy
or
Ember
or
Lord of the Rings War in the North
?

I've played a little of those two, but not enough to provide very helpful feedback, unfortunately. They're not your average Diablo clones, in any case.

Ember is a mix of ARPG and classical/tactical RPG, maybe *somewhat* comparable to Divine Divinity in that regard, with premade areas and encounters, I believe, and dialogues with choices, although from what I recall dialogues are linear and choices very limited. And - IIRC - the combat has pause button and target selection instead of repeatedly clicking on enemies, so in that regard it's more like Infinity Engine games or Dragon Age Origins, but not nearly as deep. Combat is not as fast-paced and action-oriented as ARPGs, but it does feel a bit like an ARPG due to the abundance of combat and lack of engaging story and quests. The reason why I eventually abandoned it is a weirder one though: I was tired of lore books taking up space in my inventory, didn't feel like reading them right away but also didn't want to throw them away. Hurray for games that record lore entries in your journal/codex instead of making you carry it around in books ...

From what I remember of Lord of the Rings: War in the North, it's a mostly linear console-style third-person 3D hack and slash game, also with predefined areas (not sure about the loot). It's maybe more like Divinity 2 than Diablo, but less open. And with checkpoints instead of real savegames. I'm not sure but I think you could switch between several pre-made characters at the start of each mission, and then the others would be taken over by the AI or a co-op player as companions. Not sure why I stopped playing, it was kind of fun; probably got distracted by other, ultimately more engaging games? I plan to get back to it some day though.

I haven't tried Aarklash Legacy yet. From what I read it's mostly tactical combat (with pause button?) and not much else.

War in the North isn't a bad game, but it does have a fairly severe case of consolitis and can probably be played through fairly quickly. It's not bad, mind, and it's good for a quick playthrough, but it has literally zero replayability and you'll shut your brain off for a solid chunk of it. If you can find it on sale, I'd certainly say it's worth that playthrough, but you'll also probably never revisit it. I finished it and have yet to reinstall it.

Ember, if I remember correctly was more of an Xbox Live style lite ARPG, which if I'm remembering correctly, played a LOT like the more modern Gauntlet series of games, than your typical hack and slash ARPG. It did have a fairly decent story, good artwork and the classes worked well with each other, and like Gauntlet, it's best played with buddies.

I'd also honestly recommend the last Gauntlet game as well, under the stipulation that you get it on sale, and you have friends to play it with, as that's where it really actually shines. It does have DLC, with classes that weren't in the original games, but it still has a lot of that old classic couch co-op feel to it, and a lot of hectic running around. It CAN get pretty grindy, but it still has all the fun of stealing all the loot, food, etc to piss your friends off with. :D

Is it possible that you're confusing it with another title? To my knowledge this Ember is not available on consoles and doesn't feature any co-op or multiplayer options. Combat also didn't feel like Gauntlet to me, considering that combat in Gauntlet is even more action-oriented than in your typical hack and slash ARPG, and Ember is less so, slower than that and less relying on skills than (minor) tactics ...

You're absolutely right. I do have it confused with another title. I have not played that one, but, it actually looks kind of interesting, so I may have to.

I'm somewhat of an ARPG fan. I'm not all that experienced. But here's my opinions on a few:

Torchlight 2
An improvement on Torchlight 1 in every way, such that it's not necessary to review or play Torchlight 1 any more. It is polished and smooth in every aspect - which is nice. There is no quibbling and complaining about unbalanced this and overpowered that. The pet is great. The cartoony style either appeals to you or it doesn't, but it is very well and consistently done throughout. The game is not very difficult. The flip side of that is that it is impossible to build a dead-end character. Which is good. Very fun to play through once to the end. Every year or so since I reinstall and play for 5 or 6 hours. That's that.

Grim Dawn
The Holy Grail for Diablo II-lovers. It's tough, dark, complex. There's not only a learning curve at the beginning, but I felt like I was always learning - which is great for a game like this. The loot - I never got tired of poring over the loot. So many stats - so many ways to use the items. I had a particular playstyle and ways of dealing with the aetherial damage sources... So fun to constantly crunch numbers. It was so constantly challenging just to stay in front of the crest of the wave of difficulty. Never felt like I'd gotten way ahead and could coast. Kept me on my toes. Love it! When I get the expansion I'll play again.

Van Helsing - I've been playing this again. The setting is great. The voice overs are great. I like the story - meaning, the story is compelling enough to always give me a reason to do the next quest - better in this regard than even Grim Dawn - but then again this isn't very necessary for an ARPG. Problem with this game is I don't like the tower defense and strategy management elements. The Final Cut made these less necessary. You can skip a bunch of it, which helps. But still. Also, the game remains too easy. I have never felt the strain of trying hard to figure out just how to get the edge I need - by tweaking my build a little more or seeking out a different type of armor - relying more on elemental resistances... It seemed to hardly matter where I put my points or if I waitted a while to level up. And it seemed I could always just choose the most expensive piece of armor without needing to dive into the particulars.