Okay, first off, I've played very little of Divine Divinity so far. I went and did the fetch quest and helped the elf, made my way into the catacombs and I'm currently doing the orc quest....

But so far I'm <snore> bored and a bit peeved. There seem to be a lot of "adventure game" or puzzle elements here that frankly I despise. I don't mind roleplaying and strategic use of skills and I love all the books and character interactions, but finding levers to open doors and solving riddles (even super simple ones) bores me to tears in a video game. Is this just something at the beginning to ease you into combat or am I going to be rotating statues and flipping levers to open areas all through this game?

Oh and as I said I've played very little so far but this game should NEVER be mentioned in the same sentence as the great Diablo or Baldur's Gate. I've seen enough that I like to keep me playing if there's hope that the "puzzles" go away or can be avoided, but seriously, the Infinity Engine games and both Diablo games had me hooked instantly, whereas this game seems, well... entertaining if you can get past several failings.

I won't knock it for someone else but I see a lot of comparison to those games and I really can't see it either way aside from the isometric viewpoint and fantasy setting.

Well nobody is going to convince anyone who loves Diablo that anything is any better, so there's no point even talking about that.

Back to talking about the game, though ... two things going on that I can see.

First, in the beginning off the game you spend a lot of time underground, and that can get tedious. Carefully avoiding mention of Diablo (see how I did that??), it also takes a little care to get through. So the beginning of the game can get a bit slow and, to the tastes of some people, fussy. Don't worry though; the game picks up variety in its settings as it goes on.

Second, I think you overplay the "puzzles" a bit. At least if you are willing to use walkthroughs (there are excellent ones out there) when you get bored or stumped. The puzzles themselves are rarely ones that take much thinking, and they are not button hunts like we saw in the old "DOOM" FPS shooter days or as you see in adventure games. They tend to rely on taking a lot of time to explore the game world.

As to levers, they are always either a few feet from where you want to go or ... just a few feet beyond that. They are very easy to find. I will say, though, that the game plays dark. I set my gamma to 1.65 of the game's default settings, because otherwise details can be frustratingly hard to see. Including levers! Once you do that, I don't think levers count as legitimately difficult to see anymore. Things still look plenty dark, but you won't miss anything you're supposed to see.

This game is more questy than Diablo, and that's not a fault or a benefit per se -- it's just a different game style. Not but a whole lot either, but you either like that or you don't. It's not a fault or virtue of the game, but about your personal taste. Whether you like it or don't, you can't be wrong.

LOL, ironically I don't think Diablo is the BEST I just mentioned it AND BG (or Icewind Dale, or Titan Quest, etc) because they hooked me in immediately and didn't let go. I'm probably going to give DD another try, I was just really disappointed after all I had read in the reviews (especially the bits where other people compared this to Diablo and Baldur's Gate and said that if I liked those games I'd LOVE DD.)

What especially stood out to me was almost immediately getting a vague "riddle" about dragons (which was childishly easy to solve) that set me to spinning several statues to open the entrance to the underground. They managed to combine two of my least favorite elements of gaming and shove them in my face immediately then followed it with the levers. (yes they are easy and near doors, but that begs the question of why they were included at all as they basically serve only to disrupt gameplay.)

Like I mentioned I actually liked some of the interactions and the books full of backstory are definitely nice. I don't even really mind "fetch quests," I just really hate the mechanic of saying something vague and then requiring me to go twist an object around or god forbid arrange tiles/blocks based on the "riddle." I generally avoid walkthroughs like the plague and don't feel tempted in DD. The riddle wasn't hard by any means nor was any of the combat so far, I'm just worried that this game will be an endless string of lever flipping riddle solving. If that isn't so I'll probably be happy enough to put my time in. Maybe I'll even change my mind toward the positive on DD, but while it seems entertaining I really am mystified by the comparisons others have made to top shelf games like Baldur's Gate and Diablo.

FWIW I found the puzzles in D2 harder.

As to why use levers again, if they only serve to slow you down ... well, to lend a feeling of a lived in world, I think. Doors usually need something to open them with. A regular door has a knob, and that's unspectacular enough and near enough to the door that there's no point in making it not open via a click of the left mouse button. But other kinds of entrances would be weird with a doorknob, or that mechanic. A big grate, or a drawbridge .... wouldn't it be weird to have a drawbridge with a doorknob?

Now maybe you think I'm a doorknob for asking, but really, it seems like a little atmosphere is A-OK in a video game. Big doors need big muscles and big levers to open? I'm okay with it. I'd probably feel weird if it were any other way.

Sounds to me like you just don't know a great game when it is running on your computer right in front of you, lol.

Beyond Divinity was fun, but it might be that I like having a party.

But I haven't fully explored DD to tell you any better