well, they fixed tppk which was the biggest issue in hardcore. But they didn't increase the resolution or add a whole lot to the game. increased resolution woulda really helped.
At least wide-screen users can now stretch the whole thing to fit the screen, I guess it's better than nothing. They fixed a couple of issues, but really there's a lot more left untouched, one of which is really annoying, concerning mercenaries, they get raped by fire, especially Hydra, Firewall and Meteor attacks, it's a known bug that's been there for as far as I myself can remember playing the game, if I'm not mistaken that problem was there back in 1.06 when I started playing, if not I'm not sure but it's still very old.
Additionally, since I'm playing the Barbarian I can safely say that the change to the initial mana cost of Whirldwind is more than welcome, it was barely worth it for a Barb to use Whirldwind at Level 30 since at that level most Barbs don't have a single extra point put in Energy and they suffer a gigantic lack of Mana which is certainly to be expected for a Barb, and that's the point, but now it's nice, with around 60% in Mana cost reduction I could easily use Whirldwind, and still do, at Level 30, and I don't even have any Mana leech items, I'm just using Mana potions.
Also the removal of the Iron Maiden curse from the Oblivion Knights was a good thing after all. I played alone in Act IV and had to clean the whole Sanctuary, and without Iron Maiden we Barb players can finally play there without a constant need for either luck, pure blind defiance in front of obvious lethal danger, or Berserk, as well as being able to "risk" it on foot in the second and third levels of the Worldstone Keep where Oblivion Knights are part of the randomized types of minions that can spawn there. At first I feared that the removal of Iron Maiden would suddenly make the Oblivion Knights very vulnerable to Barbs, but I was wrong, I still nearly died on several occasions anyway, they are still formidable foes and must never be underestimated.
And last but not least, it was a superb retrieval as always to confront Normal Diablo alone. I've been playing Diablo II for approximately six years and if there's one thing I always liked and never got tired of was to play alone and rely on loot findings and luck, and some minimal planning, up to Act IV to finally face the Lord of Terror single handedly, on Normal difficulty he's one heck of a bitch and I really like it that way, I died at least five times if not more, but this time around I wasn't taking it too seriously, I wasn't frustrated, I just fought it the whole time with a smile on my face wondering why I was still playing this damn decade-old game... again, and was wondering as I was trying to Frenzy my way around his lightning breath attacks just how many times I did exactly this so far, unable to answer myself, I just resumed on the fight and honestly enjoyed every second of it.
After I lost about 300K in Gold and resurrected my Merc as many times as I died I finally went back in for the final blow and still felt the same "I GOT YOU, YOU M-F-K!" sensation than I did the very first time I saw that monstrous beast shaking up the screen as it spawned and intimidatingly claiming that not even death could save me from him. I'm glad to renew with Diablo II after about a year and a half of absence, and I don't think I'll play it often, but this game is still amazingly good for its age and it's always a positive in my book to have it installed, just in case I wan't to hack 'n slash during a rainy day.