Lets take a closer look at D3. My Meltdown.

Diablo III began some time in 2005. The original artistic design was changed three times... before what we see now from what they have released so far. Diablo III's lead designer is Jay Wilson, worked on other projects but probably more known for working on WoW nowadays, a big fan of it I might add. Diablo 3's original lead art director was Brian Morrisroe. However he retired from blizzard in 2008 (i think) to go work on stuff outside of the game industry.

The new art director is Christian Lichtner. I decided to dig around and find out what I could about this guy and so Far I've got this, He was originally a comic book artist. Here is his work, http://www.comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=1864 . Or you can go here http://forums.diii.net/showthread.php?t=739848 for a lot more information on different links.
Anyhow, I've taken a look at a lot of this christian guy's work and a lot of it is over-proportioned in a sense that it makes it look a bit cartoony most of the time, then again, the guy DOES work on comic books.

Now that we know who the new art director is and who jay wilson is, lets take a look at whats wrong with diablo 3, or rather, why diablo just ain't diablo right now.

They said multiple times, that they tried a darker feel, but it didn't feel right so they went with a more colorful theme. Perhaps that's because of the overall chunky polygonic graphical standards that the game seems to offer as a basis for artwork. Closer views of the graphics can be seen in the trailers themselves, especially the new monk trailer. Very blocky, very chunky. This usually puts limitations on how good things can look when you skin them with art. So that might be why they tried a more colorful approach to the game. Unfortunately because WoW is so similar in the way they use chunky polygons when you take a closer look at stuff in diablo 3... they almost like identical, regardless of how dark the game is. From the far-away point of view, not too much, but it is there when you start to notice it.

Now I'll get into the similarities between WoW, D3, D2. First off, colors, design. Colors of the landscapes, gear, affects, skill/char/pages.
WoW-D3-D2 - Character page
WoW-D3 - nothing included or added on from D2. The original screen can still be seen in the original gameplay trailer on the blizzard site I think. After fans complained, or blizzard came to its senses, which occurred first I do not know, there is now a fully formed advanced inventory that can be compared to D2. This is a huge upgrade in trying to stretch D3 and WoW apart and make them their own games unto themselves.

WoW-D3-D2 - Skills page or should we just say, talent page.
WoW-D3- They are almost identical to each other, no change has been made according to latest released information on it.

Affects make no sense at the moment for characters. They are very flashy and can be compared very well to WoW spells and affects. D2 affects are big, but important note: when looking at the D2 affects, that fire looks like fire, ice is ice, lightning is lightning, barbarians attacks are simple melee, same goes for amazon when she is not using elemental arrows. The affects are big, but at the same time, they are sharper, and are more clearly seen. The same thing cannot be said about D3.

Landscape artwork is very well done, however unfortunately not all of it is in 3D due to the viewpoint that diablo is known for. But, again, some of it is limited by bad textures in areas, that give it a flatness to it, when you actually want it to POP more.

So far the gear is looking decent in comparing them in all 3 games, but proportions are a concern for certain things. Adding elemental "glowing" affects to weapons is something I'm not sure I understand as it is a standard WoW feature that is a big part of WoW. Good or bad for D3? Not sure I understand it for D3 to be honest. They tried to do it in D2 by colorizing weapons. I think if they toned it down a lot from what we can see in the gameplay trailer it would work, but if you make the weapons glow so bright that you can't see the top-half of your character I'm not really sure that its going to work for D3 at all. Looking at your gear on your character and knowing that your gear looks awesome and is badass is a good thing, but when you can't even see it because of glow affects I'm not sure I like that too much.

Now lets compare game mechanics.
WoW-D3-D2. Character stats.
WoW-D3- auto stats. Don't really need to say much about it, auto stats are good for balancing reasons. Blizzard already stated that they did not add auto stats because of balancing reasons. Now, read this statement carefully. They claim that you do not need to allocate stats yourself because there are other forms of customization in the game. So... Basically that means they are taking out player-allocated stats because they feel you already have enough customization. That's basically their reason from what I've read. Does that make sense? Not to me. The direct amount of customization the player has at his fingertips is what makes these types of games stay alive. If you take out customization, or just replace it with another type of customization, it hurts the player either way.

WoW-D3-D2. Cooldowns:
WoW-D3-D2- Diablo 2, hm, not so much... I'll let you decide on that one. As for me, 9sec +plus Cooldowns are kind of anti-diablo. Brings new skills to the table sure sure, as you can't spam a stun spell basically, so some good and bad there.

Runes:
WoW-D3-D2.
WoW-D3. It's an added on thought process of an item that they have in WoW that changes skills. So its basically similar to what this does. This is the one time where I can say that taking this idea from WoW and adding into it and putting it into diablo 3 is not a bad idea at all. However runes have absolutely nothing to do with how they worked in diablo 2. Why is that the case? I am Not sure. Could they have just given these objects a different name and used runes for something else? Perhaps... But the Fact remains... Runes from D2 no longer work the same at all for diablo 3. Does this make sense going from one "diablo franchise game" to another "newer one based off the older one" I'm not sure that it does.

Posture/monster similarities
As far as this is concerned, it doesn't make much sense to me other than there being a lot of placeholders in the game. But honestly, that's being too optimistic, so I'm going to look at the posture/monster similarities between D3 and WoW without being optimistic.

The Unburied
http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/bestiary/unburied.xml
BAM - What's your first reaction? Mine? Abomb from warcraft 3/wow.

The Skeletal undead
http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/bestiary/undead.xml
BAM - What's your first reaction? Mine? Why is his shield glowing, why does he explode into blood when hes killed and not bones/dust. Why is his belt bigger than his body. Why are his shoulder pads hovering on this shoulders, and why are they so big?

The Dark cultist
http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/bestiary/darkcultists.xml
BAM - What's your first reaction? Mine? Undead warlock or mage from WoW with the proper attire. They have the same exact casting animations as the undead mage/warlock from WoW also. Same hand movements. Same posture. Same spell animations.

The Male Wizard
I do Not have a link for reference. But My first reaction was a male bloodelf. Same posture and everything. Probably even has the same spellcasting//attacking animations. But I'd say that's going too far as I haven't seen it. But from what I have seen.. wouldn't put it paste me to think otherwise.

Now... for a change up subject lets talk about items. As you can see there are purple texted items dropping in D3 in the gameplay video. Information was released regarding this and they were considering making them the best items in the game to get in D3. No, I kid you not. The iconic WoW purple texted items would have been the best, but unless my memory is deteriorating they changed that for the better. Gold for uniques in D3? Still a tossup I think, but I know the best won't be purple.

All in all... From my point of view, they are adding too much stuff from WoW into D3. I understand previous guys working on WoW are workin on this but damn at least have some self respect to make your games different from each other. I understand they are still working on it... but come on. I believe more drastic changes need to be made for D3. Currently as it stands, to me, its not acceptable. Sorry but I probably offended you with this blizzard but your not the only one, I am offended personally by your thought process on how to make diablo 3.