The mouse has to be without doubt one of the most boring pieces of technology available. It might be as useful an invention as the car or the railways, but rarely will we be doing backflips over a new piece of mouse-related hardware. Thanks to Diablo III, this has all just changed.

Brilliant gameplay; runs on anything; easy to understand; simple controls

Those who like more beef to their RPG might want to look elsewhere; you have to have an internet connection to play

Silly stability issues mar an otherwise excellent game.

We should know by now that Blizzard doesn't believe in a revolutionary approach to games design. Just as the main moan about StartCraft II was that it was, actually, a lot like StarCraft, so you can guarantee that some people will be saying that Diablo III is a lot like Diablo II, which was itself a...

Addictive slay; loot and upgrade gameplay; High level of polish; Excellent co-op multiplayer; Good; well-balanced range of classes

Not a huge advance on previous games; Connection issues

The Blast Factor: Diablo III is bound to have its doubters, and that's to be expected after twelve years in development. Boiling the game down to its core mechanics and most basic principles though, there's no way to deny it – -Diablo III is one hell of a good time.

Hours are spent roaming maze-like dungeons with your sole purpose being to massacre anything you find down there.

When Diablo was originally released, I couldn't really get into it. The monotonous clicking and looting wasn't my thing. While the atmosphere was nice, I felt the gameplay was to bland and repetitive. I skipped it and stuck with the likes of Baldur's Gate and Morrowind for my RPG experiences.

Great fun in coop; Literally two clicks and you're in the middle of coop action; Great polish; Low system requirements; Cool classes

Stupid difficulty curve; Unrewarding itemization; Unrewarding character leveling; Activision game pricing; Lots of server down-time which makes it impossible to play even singleplayer; Boring in single player; Lag can easily kill you

Blizzard, kings of the online PC game, make a long-awaited return to consoles with this PS3 and Xbox 360 version of last year's action-RPG smash. Although the first Diablo and StarCraft were ported to PlayStation and N64 respectively by other studios, this is the first console game Blizzard has made...

Superb; intense action role-playing; with an excellent new control scheme on consoles; One of the best couch co-op games you can buy; with every option you can think of; Brilliant character classes with spectacular skills; all freely customisable

Loot is better than the PC game; but still not as exciting as it might be; Cheesy story that's fun at first; but wears out its welcome on multiple playthroughs; Randomisation is a bit too gentle to really keep things fresh

It's been over a decade since we braved the Burning Hells to pluck humanity from the Lord of Terror's gaping maw, and the games industry, Blizzard included, has changed quite a bit during Diablo's hiatus.

+ Changes from the PC version are smart and work well on 360; + Deep RPG elements lead to endless customization of skills and gear

- Framerate can get choppy when too many enemies and spell effects are on the screen; ? How did scorpions end up in other dimensions?

As good as Diablo is ever likely to be when playing with a joypad, but even the new local co-op options are subject to necessary but debilitating compromises.

Satisfying combat with highly versatile customisation options and character classes; Smartly console-ified controls and interface, with a great new offline co-op option

Extremely linear and relatively short; Limited enemy artificial intelligence and awful storytelling; Controls and co-op work as well as they can but are still riddled with compromise

I have played the Diablo games from the start. I had the first Diablo on both PC and Playstation, Diablo 2 on the PC. Fantastic games and I even met my husband playing Diablo over Battlenet, when the clan Heavens Angels and Dojo were about.