I guess I'm a bit late for the big ole' shitstorm but here, have 2 cents! And then some....
Normal is easy: Yes, normal in Diablo has always been easy. Normal in D3 is quite a bit harder, on average, than the other 2 games. It's sort of a franchise thing at this point. I look at it the same as Zelda bosses where you have to use the dungeon item on the boss 3 times. Every time. That said, I did die in act 1, right past the skeleton king, on normal my first time through.
And yes, you could stand out in the Blood Moor (D2, act 1, area 1) and zombies would basically ignore you.
D2 was so much better!: To play devil's advocate, D2 has skills which have been broken/bugged/useless for as long as I can remember. (inferno, fend, arctic blast come to mind. The first simply cannot function as designed because the game engine negates 80% of its damage. The last was a direct copy of the first, showing that Blizzard really just didn't care about documented issues).
DRM/RMAH/etc./etc. Personally, bringing these up here *without* discussing how they impact the gameplay itself seems to me like people are pushing a political agenda and using this game as an acceptable target/vehicle for soapboxing. Having an opinion on the state of the vidya gaem industry is great; I've been known to express my own on occasion. But I don't recall this much hubbub getting raised about other AAA titles that had similar issues. I'd prefer state-of-the-industry commentary be kept separate from ANY individual game threads, unless noted and discussed in relation to specific issues in specific games. Also, world peace.
All that said, were I to re-evaluate my opinion on the game after 2 weeks of play... and I
were shall, it'd go like this:
-Combat pacing feels very smooth to me in nightmare and hell. The touted build diversity is definitely present in these difficulties.
-Shared stash is about 10 years overdue.
-Dat art, man. Dat art.
-Classes are all interesting to me. I couldn't pick a single favorite or least favorite; I will definitely be entertained with the game until I get 1 of everything to 60.
-The writing. I'm one of those "oh no, you don't play it for the story lol!" guys, and I'm still embarassed for them. Seriously.
-Itemization is flat and boring (nah, I don't give a damn about legendaries), at least partially because:
-Inferno is drastically over-tuned, on purpose. The only things that matter are damage stat, vit, resists. Unless you're in later inferno... then you stack all the damage you can and don't get hit. For a WD, anyway. Act 1 is fun enough, but the rest feels a bit steep.
-The economy is suffering from inflation already. Gold sinks aren't worth using. US commodities AH has been down for... well I don't remember when it was last up.
The gameplay-related downers are mostly fixable, but in spite of myself I do think the company is going slowly senile. I hope they can pull this one off in the medium-term, because I'm kinda sick of watching my favorite Blizz franchise be the bastard child of the company and get locked in the attic to be tormented by Uncle Bob thwacking the second-floor ceiling with a broomstick.
Re: bots.
I'd love to see a bot farm any meaningful content at 60. By meaningful I mean champ packs in A4 Hell and onward.