I ended up getting a free copy of the game as a promotion, and so far (6hrs in) its better than I was expecting. Almost all of the major issues I had with Diablo 3 have been fixed. I haven't seen an item auction house and all the items I pick up are for my class instead of for a random one. There seems to be less gear dropped overall, so each pickup is more impactful and inventory management is easier. The 1st playthrough of the game lets you start on difficulty 2, instead of being forced on difficulty 1. Its still a bit easy, but no where near the game journalist mode that D3 forced you into. I've been playing D4 on PC with a controller and it works well, I much prefer it over the keyboard/mouse controls. I found it baffling when D3 didn't allow that. The art style and plot seem to have a much more serious tone, which I think fits much better than D3's attempt at being wacky/cartoony.

So far the game looks great visually, lots of interesting details and it fits the atmosphere well, going with a less saturated color pallet and has slower atmospheric music which works for the starting winter villages and the lingering demon threat. I'm don't know how well this will carry over into lategame, as things will need to ramp up. The game also has a lot more focus on the open world, which is filled with side quests and small dungeons. Occasionally a mini-boss will spawn in an area and multiple players can all join up to fight it, I guess this is the justify the always online requirement.

Aspects of the gameplay seem to be simplified a bit. Each skill has a choice between 2 effects, and the differences and modifiers aren't nearly as large as before. For the necromancer, the skeleton spawns are on a different skill tree than your abilities, so you end up leveling up both evenly instead of picking one. I suspect that a well planned build will not be nearly as gamebreaking, and players will end up with a lot more viable builds but with each option feeling similar. Items are a bit simpler, with 3 max upgrades per item, no need to use identification scrolls, potions limited to max of 4 in your toolbelt, can teleport back to base without a scroll, all items using 1 inventory slot.

Is the game woke? So far I've only seen 1 minor instance, in the character select screen they show you the female characters when you pick a class instead of the male ones. That and picking between body type A and B. Ingame ~90% of the characters are white, which makes sense for a setting that I assume is based on medieval north europe (99% is more accurate, but 90% is close enough) and character morality doesn't seem to have any connection to skin color or gender. I haven't seen any mentions of anything related to woke ideology anywhere with the characters or plot. Maybe it changes later on, but so far I see no issues. Rather, I think the game design is largely influenced by various market trends, mainly the open world and 'cinematic gameplay' from other AAA games and the dark fantasy themes from game of thrones, with monetization being mainly through trying to see cosmetics.