Been playing the game all night and I'm soooo tired today because of it!
So, the analogy I've been using with people (and on my Twitter) is: You know how you go to see your favorite band perform and some unkown band opens up for them that turns out to be awesome? That's what Torchlight is to Diablo 3.
This game is SO much fun, and for $20 there is really no reason anyone who likes the dungeon crawlers should not buy it. There is a ton of loot to get which consists of swords, axes, hammers, maces, staffs, gun, armor, rings, socket items, gems and more, and it consists of blues, purples., greens (sets) and oranges too. There are Identify and Town Portal scrolls (sound familiar?). Plus Matt Uelmen is going to score (Matt composed the music for Diablo2 as well) and it totally and completely elevates the experience.
The look of the game is oh-so-very much inspired by Warcraft, and not in a pretentious way either. It works, and it's beautiful.
When you create a character you choose between two pers--a wolf or a cat. At this point I'm unsure of the differences beyond the asthetics. The pet is extremely useful because it will attack, learn and cast magic, act as a pack mule (Yes--seriously!) and will even run off to town to sell whatever items you have it holding. Let me say that once more because it's such an awesome feature. There is a little button you press that sends your pet off to town and 30 seconds later the pet returns. It's a huge time saver, and really is one of those features (once you use it) that makes you wonder why it's taken so long.
Something worth noting--the game has no coop. For me, I'm totally fine with it and still think it's a deal at $20, but I know some people will be sore about that.