Its been over 24 hours now since the newest expansion was released for Diablo 3 - Reaper of Souls. I will try to avoid spoilers on the post below.
I will tell you what it has been a struggle to pull myself away from it to write up this post but it has certainly delivered on rejuvenating the game and making it fun to play. Act 5 where Westmarch lies certainly has a much darker tone then usual for even Diablo when you see Mathael's plans unfolding for Sanctuary. A particularly disturbing place is imaged below in the early part of Act 5...
After Mathael is stopped however a new adventure mode is accessible and it is certainly an adventure. Travel to any act, collect bounties on some more well known monsters and some not so well known. Complete events or cleanse chests and shrines. It is very open ended on what can be done. For your troubles be rewarded with XP, Gold and a chance for blood shards that will allow you to feel like Gheed has come back to the game for each bounty you complete. If you complete all of the bounties in a single act in the game, a small treasure box with even more loot will be given to you by our favorite Mortal Angel.
So after you collect all your bounties and you find several rift shards in your inventory as part of that.. you can join up with some friends and enter one of the Nephalem Rifts (friends not required, but helpful!) These rifts defy the normal game mechanics in terms of the environments, monsters you find, even shrines. As a small taste of what you can find, imagine a shrine that removes all resource costs... For you barbarian fans out there that is SIX (yes 6) Avalanches in less then a minute.
So if you have not yet picked up the game or have been teetering on the edge based on the bad rep that D3 classic has gotten, don't think, just buy it and get playing. You will not be disappointed and find that while it took a bit longer then usual, Blizzard has delivered another spectacular experience. Now, back to reaping the souls!