the clumping up is a great feature, not a bug. nothing i hate more than sending a pack of units someplace and them spreading across half the map because they don't want to get within 10 meters of each other like in the original starcraft.
I think it was Day9 (or someone else) who pointed out that Brood War pathfinding being imperfect is among the chief reasons for what makes the micromanagement portion of that game exciting - because us humans are prone to making mistakes, and because the limitations of the game allow the micro feats to look truly spectacular.
In Brood War, anyone can make a mistake - Jaedong can sometimes forget his expansion morphed in and there are idle larvae gathering there with no work getting done, Flash's SCV might be hanging out not doing his job, or Bisu can just randomly lose a whole bunch of probes to a mine he carelessly triggered. This helps level the playing field - even if someone is better than you you can still try to screw them up, and any comebacks are much easier to perform.
Common criticism of SC2 is that, with all of the QoL improvements that game gives to the player, the game is much more unforgiving of mistakes - as any room you leave to your opponent is much more likely to snowball when so much of the game is automatized - and that many engagements in the late game are basically deathballs smashing other deathballs. You can't really have deathballs in BW - even the infamous Terran deathball slowpush that brings death to many Zerg and Protoss on the ladder is clunky, very prone to being caught out of position by a smart scout, and susceptible to stuff like Zealot bombs, flanks, Psionic Storm and Stasis Field play. Not to mention that Terran's powerful deathballs might be unmatched in the field, but the much faster Zerg and Protoss armies also have more ways of simply outmaneuvering said deathball by striking away from it.
It should be acknowledged that SC2, like its precedessor, -is- a very mechanically intensive game - you have to be really good to maintain stuff like injection of larvae, to remember all the M.U.L.E. deliveries, to keep your resources low, and to micro skirmishes and spells, and I very appreciate the depth that goes into all of those things! - and it also makes sure that you need to know and understand your build orders well.
But it feels like the mechanical challenges of Brood War look more exciting. You are what any ambitious commander would like to be - an avid micromanager that knows what's best for his troops in all spheres of their short, digital life. You have to be in charge of the logistics, you have to pay attention to the economy, you have to keep an eye on their movements, and there's plenty of techniques that allow you to set up great flanks even with the janky 12 unit limit. There was a gif a long time ago where a pro Zerg player amasses his full force and is about to clamp down on an opponent who will type "gg" in a few moments - and it looks great to see all those little dots on the map just move, one by one, from their carefully placed stations and collapse onto the enemy, as the little Zerg dots fall-in and begin consuming the Terran dots.
SC2 can't offer those challenges by the nature of its design - but I've seen outlets like TL and whatnot say that if many games can simply be reduced to "who was best in injecting their larvae and just smashed their deathball on the enemy better", it doesn't feel nearly as exciting. The Protoss Dragoon in Brood War is often rightfully considered to be the most dysfunctional of his brethren, but that only makes the
Dragoon control exhibited in this match all the more spectacular.
I still believe SC2 has every right to be called a "good" experience, and I wouldn't judge it as harshly as many here, though I'm much more of a Brood War fan and I'm happy to see people migrating back from SC2 to BW and giving it another ride.
And again, SC2 really doesn't have that much working competition among RTS games with working netplay or decent balance, which makes it all the more viable.
D3 aesthetic is nothing like warcraft (I know because I detest warcraft aesthetic), it's more like an 80s post-apoc cartoon and suits it well. Diablo 1's athmosphere was fantastic but horror doesn't really fit the gameplay of an ARPG and Diablo 1 is only memorable because they did it so well that clashing with the gameplay didn't take anything from it.
Are you sure you played Diablo 1? The atmosphere doesn't go against the gameplay at all, especially with the sorta shit that D1 could throw at you. Diablo 1 is, for the most part, slow and methodical to play, monsters sound quite terrifying and could often surprise you - Illusion Weavers, for example are the most advanced variation on a common enemy, who stays invisible until he pops up right in your face and unleashes a barrage of very fast attacks that deal heavy damage and are prone to stunlocking you - all the while unleashing guttural sounds against a creepy audiovisual background. If you died in MP, you dropped all items on the floor individually and it was even more tense to try and get them back.
It isn't necessarily a "survival horror" game or whatever, but it *is* themed around horror tropes and it does its job really well. In some ways it plays like a mid-level game of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay hosted by a competent DM - stuff is generally creepy, mysterious and disturbing, but not to the point where you will shit-your-pants-be-scared, but you will feel serious and invested. The game features extensive demonic imagery, villagers who went completely insane from the PTSD received from the demons, children mutilated in a sacrificial act to a demon, insane cultists, constant threat, the notion that you can easily fall under the influence of evil and go insane, corruption, and general moodiness.
