I have an odd relationship with loot-biased RPG's, at least the 3 I've played. I played Torchlight, Torchlight 2 and Borderlands 2. At the time I played each one non-stop, couldn't get enough of whichever one I was playing. Then I would finish that one Maybe play it one more time with a different class. But one that second playthrough was over I would utter despise the game. Sure enough I can't see myself ever playing either Torchlight again and I wont touch Borderlands 2 for the next few years (Only played that one once). So I have a limited love for A-RPG's If I'm going to play another of these it ought to be good Here is where Diablo 3 come in.

When Diablo 3 came out two years back it was like Jesus had come down from heaven with a host of angels and announced with a big happy smile on his face "None of you will ever get to heaven. You're all going to hell. Sorry if I got your hopes up".
At the time I was still newish to game culture so I just rolled my eyes and went back to playing The Torchlight 2 demo. Mow that I'm more familiar with Blizzard's importance in the world of gaming I have a better understanding of how people felt.
I was watching a funny let's play of Diablo 3 the other day and it looked just as fun as Torchlight 2. So I thought maybe it's been patched into a good game now. So has it? Should I give it a try?
Or should I just get Diablo 1&2 instead?

Yes.

But then, you can judge for yourself. Download the starter edition which is free and try it out.

I thought D3 was pretty well received?
I mean it had the always online DRM and then the servers went down.. and the auction house was removed or something.
But the game itself was always well received I thought.
So if you like that type of game, I'm guessing you'll enjoy it.
Is it still always online btw?

People were crying about the difficulty of Inferno. But that has all been fixed nowadays, since there are 10 difficulty levels, unlike on release when there were only 4.

I played a lot of Diablo 2. Hardcore pvp was the best thing ever.

I have no intention of playing Diablo 3. It is probably fun, but the carebear changes from 2 make me rather play something else... not that I think they are the same people that made the other games.

I am playing Din's Curse at the moment. http://www.gog.com/game/dins_curse You should try that. The monsters attack town.

Just play Grim Dawn, it is on sale on Humblebundle(13€~) right now and it is the best ARPG I came across since Diablo 2. Absolutely love it and can highly recommend it.

Personally I'll wait with Diablo 3 until I have a PS4. Many people I know and trust consider it the definitive version of the game. If it weren't for the next gen version I probably would have already gotten it for PS3.

It's worth it.

Before Diablo 3 I played Torchlight and after finishing the first one I started playing the second one which I didn't finish as of this writing (never really gotten into it, dunno why).

I started playing Diablo 3 when they announced the shutdown of the auction house (never really liked the idea of those things). At the time I started reading about what they did with the game (all the various patches and the changes those patches brought).

From my experience I really enjoyed the story even if it isn't a really deep RPG-esque one, but it is good enough just to keep you going (at least for me it was). Once you finish the Adventure mode you unlock the Bounties and the Rifts which give quite a lot of replayability to the game even more if you find some friends to play it with.

But you should be warned, Diablo is a gear grind game, so if you enjoy that kind of thing you can play it as much as you want, but on the other hand you can get really frustrated with the randomness of loot.

I would go as Elenaire suggested, try the started edition and see if you enjoy it.

It's probably not a bad game, so it might be "worth it". The question is, is "it" $40, or $60, or however many you can get it for. With the Torchlights, Borderlands, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, or any number of overlooked oldies available, very good, and very much cheaper... I'd say not.

How does it compare with Path of Exile? That is, in my humble opinion, the best ARPG since Diablo 2.

I can imagine that the stuff missing from the console version is stuff I don't need (just read up on the seasons and it does not at all sound like a feature I'd make use of) while the basic gameplay will probably be much more enjoyable to me there.

If it's anything like D2, they'll probably keep patching it for years to come. One of the things about D2 is that if you set it down for a year or two and come back to it, the balance was mostly changed so it was more or less like starting over.

I say with the starter edition being available, the only reason not to try it is if you hate multiplayer games, and I suppose you could always just set up your own game and not let anybody else in.

That I actually don't know. After I stopped with Diablo 2 and managed to avoid ever touching WoW, I decided to stay away from Online-RPGs of any sort, which also happens to be the reason for me not playing Diablo 3.

Grim Dawn however is very good imo and the development team delivers solid work. Currently 2 out of 3 Acts are out and I already sunk 150 hours into the game. There is a good variety of builds and items. I really like the atmosphere and I have yet to encounter any serious bugs. They also manged to carry over the good aspects of Titan Quest and leaving out some of the flaws.