Well. So far, the positives and negatives for me:

Negative:
- Seems like we've regressed to the "random loot from everything". Meaning it'll again be rats dropping full plate armors and whatnot. One of the best things about Titan Quest was that humanoid enemies spawned with gear pieces that could also be worn by the player and they'd drop from the enemies when killed. Every single item. So an enemy could spawn with a gear piece in every available slot and it would physically drop them all on death. True, they were mostly just white or grey trash items, but again, it added to the immersion factor. Unfortunately seems to be missing here. They also say there will be Monster Infrequents, but the one in the video drops from a chest and not a specific enemy type? Seems like it will just be another rarity type instead items that just drop from a specific enemy type.

- Lack of physics. Besides enemy ragdolls, it seems mostly missing. Items drop rigidly to the ground and get instantly "glued" to it. In Titan Quest, if you fought on stairs for example and an item dropped from an enemy, it could roll down the stairs and you'd have to go get it. Or even from some skills. Fragments from a fireball launched in random directions with random force and depending on the angle of impact or the shape of the terrain, they could all explode near one another or spread out everywhere. It gave the game a very unique and TQ-specific immersion factor which seems to be missing here.

- Don't really like the streamlining of inventory with just 1x2 or 1x1 items and nothing else.

- Some attention to detail stuff. No reaction of grass when walking through it, basically no effect when running in water etc. But that all could probably be easily improved before full release.

Positive:
- Items still have attribute requirements. Meaning you will not be able to use every single piece of gear and won't end up as a full armored warrior with a wizard staff or something like that.

- The game looks very good, mostly thanks to it being on Unreal Engine 5.

- The Mastery mixing is still present and seems they put extra emphasis on the combinations with the mods for separate skills.

- Enemy level-scaling will be player controllable through "Rituals"? A great idea. This will still allow for the feeling of increasing power AND give you an option to raise the level of an area so you can farm some specific stuff, great idea.

- Their emphasis on the game starting at level 1, not when you hit the cap or finish campaign or whatever. TQ was always about the journey and really glad they are keeping this aspect.

- All dialogue seems to be voice acted. Always liked that about TQ.

- Was going through the commentary video with auto generated subs, but if I understood correctly, they aren't going to be doing seasons and such? Great!

Overall current feeling - somewhat hopeful. Although the game won't probably appear on GOG until early-access is done, which could take a long time.

Correct, they deliberately decided against the seasons formula and instead are going the traditional route (base campaign + story/gameplay expansion(s)/add-on(s), depending on how well the base game does, of course). Just like the original Titan Quest or SpellForce 3.

Also: No always online, no mictrotransactions, no subscriptions of any sort - you buy it once and are free to experience it at your own pace.

Noticed that as well, especially when grass didn't react to the player character moving through it.
Could be that this particular "environmental interaction" component of the physics system is not optimised yet and they had it turned off to ensure that it doesn't tank the overall performance of the demo.

Very likely, yes.
Personally wouldn't have the time for "beta-testing" anyway. Perfectly fine with picking up v1.0 whenever it's finished and launched here.

Same here and thanks for the clarifications.

One more negative I noticed - the camera seems to be static with only zoom. I know that's the norm these days but, Sacred 2 or Grim Dawn give the player full camera control. Kinda strange how stubborn the ARPG genre is with allowing full control of the camera, barring a couple exceptions.

Demo Gameplay Dev Commentary

"The essence of every ARPG lies in its core mechanics, and for dedicated fans, understanding how these elements work and interconnect is essential. Titan Quest II is pulling back the curtain on these fundamentals in this video. Join Balint Marczin, Lead Systems Designer, and Florian Jonas, Technical Art Director at Grimlore Games, for a 40-minute playthrough of the recent gamescom demo. Get an in-depth look at the core systems of Titan Quest II."

Honestly looking good so far. Like most of what I'm hearing and seems like the devs are trying to build upon what made the first game as memorable. Will be following its journey through early access.

Nice. Didnt realise it was being made. Any idea what the hardware requirements is likely to be like? (sorry if its way too early to ask...)

Indeed, still a bit early to ask (screen from requirements on Steam).

16 is the current minimum I'd say. With internet tabs being able to take hundreds of MB at a time and games having to load huge textures and levels, 16 can go up in smoke awfully quick. I'm at 32 GB and that is quite comfortable. But for normal users, anything above is still overkill really. At that point, it's better to invest into making sure the RAM is also fast, not just large.