Yes, well. I was sitting in the toilet the other day, for some reason I had forgot I had no toilet paper and I was in the middle of taking a shit. I'll tell you what I did. I walked into the computer room ass bare, dug out my copy of Diablo 3, took the manual and went back to finish my shit.
Now I'm not saying Diablo 3 was wasted money or bad quality. I'm simply saying that for it's use it is a tad bit expensive.
Obviously, I think you're greatly overstating your case, but I'll give you bonus points for style. +10
"How exactly was he out of the line? He did not say a single thing about the game we haven't already heard elswhere. His criticisms directly echo many gamers complaints that you can read on every forum. "
Some anonymous 12 year old saying "UR GAEM IS TEH SUXXORZ" on a forum or a comment thread is COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY DIFFERENT than a fellow game designer, a former coworker (for at least some of the people involved), and a former employee echoing said comments. And, yes, some of these comments are highly critical, even if they are couched in friendly rhetoric.
For example: "I am also a little happy, which I hate to say, it shows that the people that were involved in Diablo really did matter, and so I am happy that it has come to light that how talented that group was and how unique and special that group was. "
In other words, he's happy Diablo 3 isn't well liked because it shows how much better his design team was than the current design team.
Keep in mind, Diablo 3 has the same review scores as Diablo 2 (which was strongly criticized on release for instability, lack of balance, abuse/cheating, and lack of innovation). Also, the main unpopular changes (always-on, auction house) were almost certainly the result of publisher involvement, and the version of D3 he was working on in 2003 almost certainly had always-on. However, he doesn't focus on this. He attacks the design team as being so flawed and inexperienced in the genre that it shows how great his was.
Imagine if, after Hellgate came out, top Blizzard execs were like, "It makes us feel good that it failed because it showed how important our resources and management practices were to the success of Diablo 2." Would that have been cool to say? No. It would've been in INCREDIBLY bad taste, and there (rightfully) would've been a big response. But Brevik gets a pass because he's picking on everybody's favorite whipping boy, even if he's attacking the (largely competent -and- innocent) design team rather than the publisher.
Honestly, RPG Watch is all over the place. JVC gets a place of honor, despite being in charge of the F2P bastardization of Command and Conquer. Brevik's comments are taken as gold, even though he hasn't done a damn thing in 10 years. Meanwhile, Boyarsky is, what, garbage to you for working on D3?
Let's face it, if Brevik worked at Blizzard, D3 would be mostly the same, which is why this shit is so absurd to begin with.