Where Diablo IV feels most like a MMO, and most to my dislike, is in its utter disrespect for the player's time: A game like Baldur's Gate 3 ends when the character has reached the level cap and the end of the main story; Diablo IV, like a MMO, *begins* when the character has reached the level cap and the end of the main story. It isn't just that I didn't have much fun in my first 3 hours of Diablo IV personally, it feels like I am not even supposed to have fun. The repetitive grind starting at low levels is a feature, not an accident. The rewards, whether it is level-ups or gear you find, don't feel significant, they feel like a small increment in a very long "numbers go up" game. It is hard to get excited about a magic ring that gives +3 hit points and +1% crit chance.

Of course this all is from the perspective of somebody who used to run a MMO blog and played tens of thousands of hours for over a decade of various MMOs. I am simply over this genre. I'm tired of playing a game for many hours only for the purpose of getting to the point where the fun starts. Your mileage may vary, and I am not saying that Diablo IV is a bad game or that you wouldn't have fun with it. But for me it feels like a bad memory of a time I now left behind me, and I don't want to go back to.