Character classes

Two of five classes have been unveiled so far: Barbarian and Witch Doctor.[2][11] Players may choose gender for each class, a change from the fixed class genders in the previous two games.[5]

Art direction and design
Several websites reported that people felt disgruntled with the art style used,[12] calling for what they believed would be a "darker," "more realistic" look.[13] They criticized the game's apparent resemblance to the World of Warcraft series, the purported lack of the "light radius" from the previous games, and what they termed "colorful and cartoon-like" visuals and "out-of-proportion" character figures and armor.[14][15]

Lead producer Keith Lee has stated:

"One of the things that we considered when we were working on the visuals for ‘Diablo 2 Items’ is the fact that color is your friend. We feel that color actually helps to create a lot of highlights in the game so that there is contrast. A great analogy is like in ‘Lord of the Rings’ — not everything is dark. It allows you to see what a creepy dungeon can be like but if everything is dark it doesn’t allow you to have a lot of contrast. ‘Diablo I’ and ‘Diablo 2 Items’ are darker, and I think that [sic] the one of the main reasons why is the fact that...you’re basically in a dungeon the whole time. And in...‘Diablo 2 Items,’ you’ll be exploring outdoors, you’ll be in dungeons, you’ll be experiencing so many different areas. We want to bring as much variety as we can when you’re playing the game so that you’re excited to check out new environments. We don’t want everything to look the same..."[16]

Art director Brian Morrisroe said at Blizzard's Worldwide Invitation "Our memory of what Diablo and Diablo 2 Items were was a bit different than the actuality of it. Visually we were remembering it as more of a dark, colorless game, but there was a lot of vibrance." He also explained that they wanted characters to have a strong silhouette, so that the characters were easily seen even when there was a lot of action.[17][18]