They nerfed Blood Golem+Iron Maiden big time in later patches.

That should be 1.12 then. It's tempting to load up on summons, but you really do want the skills for iron maiden and whatever that precursor skill is.

despite having played both games every now and then i would say the first diablo truly depicts the series, i mean they are not kidding just get to the initial bosses the butcher and the skeleton king, you will be running around thinking omg, the music is awesome the expansion is great
the playstation version has the cool books which can be read

although titan quest corrects d2 somewhat it still lacks a good story and any sort of inspiration to play the game again and again

have you heard about the ubers in diablo 2, there are not many people who can attack them forget about solo them just look up for uber diablo it will show up

I tend to hate these clicky-clicky games with no tactics, though the original Diablo is pretty awesome just for atmosphere and music.

It's terrible, I'll forever love Diablo's atmosphere, music and gameplay, but I can't find the patience to play it anymore due to the inclusion of running in DII. When I try to go back and play, I feel like I'm trudging along so slowly. Am I the only one out there who has this issue or am i just nuts?

the running issue is corrected in the hellfire expansion but you wont be able to play on bnet if you install the expansion

I count Diablo 2 among disappointing sequels. D1 is fun and fast, D2 is too much grinding to fun IMO. Sure, you get change of locations and new character classes, but I just didn't warm up to it.

liked the first level

got bored 20 min in second level because it was exactly the same like first level. except differently colored.

I think Diablo II may have been a game that hasn't aged too well. The randomly generated environments didn't work as well outdoors as they do indoors, which adds to the problem seeing as how most of the game is spent outdoors this time. Diablo I was all indoors.

This. After you finish what passes for storyline (can we even call it storyline?) on the third difficulty, all what remains for the game is mindlessly grind bosses for better items.
This game is a grinding clickfest with some RPG elements at best.

Fixed and agreed.
In Diablo 1 I felt the atmosphere, in D2 I just hacked through, to the end.

I had a period when i play tons of hack n slash games.
I found diablo 2 also a bit mediocre after playing the 1 part.
Maybe it was because it didn't feel new anymore who knows.
But i did enjoy it. :)

And of course, the beauty of randomized loot drops is you don't get what you need when you need it. Yeah... I never finished the expac cause I got too frustrated with that boss. If I could find a cheat to be invinsible for that one encounter I would do it, just to finish the game.

I've said this more than once before, but the biggest problem I have with Diablo II is that it strips away all of the bleak and bloody gothic atmosphere of the first game, leaving a generic shell that they filled with an unprecedented focus on min-maxing and loot-whoring. All of these left-click-for-loot games are ultimately about killing hordes of creatures and taking their stuff, of course, but Diablo II is more shameless and gratuitous about it than any I've ever seen. The first game struck the perfect balance, and was relatively grounded in terms of the range and volume of loot.

That's why I said Act I was the best: the monastery was the closest the atmosphere in Diablo II ever gets to that of the first game. Act III is an embarrassment, and even hell itself is too cartoonish to be menacing.

The skill system is also only an improvement on paper. In practice, it was a mess.

Heh, I totally HATED Titan quest - it's slow, there's no random world generation which makes consequential playtroughs incredibly boring and it looks ... I don't know, kind of bland. So saying that it kicked Diablo's ass on all fronts is an exaggeration.