** general aRPG rambling **
I played the original FATE back in the day (And enough of that has held over to Torchlight that I consider them, if not in the same series, spiritual successors), and I enjoyed their unique take on a casual ARPG/diablolike.
I thought Torchlight was the skeleton of a good game, but it lacked enough motivation to make it great, and was bogged down by some pretty terrible design decisions (including some holdovers from FATE). Bows and guns have less than 1-screen range? Pay an enchanter to completely destroy your best gear? Fishing that manages to be even more boring than IRL? Axe skill on bows? Melee set bonuses on gear that spawns entirely with caster mods? Coupled with about 1/3 of the talents of every class being identical (the adventuring ones), and half the rest being obvious cloned skills (melee guy ground stomps, shooting a ricochet shockwave. Shooter girl shoots, firing a ricochet shockwave...), I just couldn't stick with it. I've been lurking the TL2 thread and seeing some of the same issues come up, so I won't be buying it until I see where the mod community actually goes.
However.... I think when it comes to more traditional D2-style play, Titan Quest got it right and managed to refine the character building system into something truly great. Talent trees are the basis of class so you aren't as restricted as D3, and stat points are actually flexible and meaningful. Some classes are equally valid as melee or caster, etc. The same crew is working on Grim Dawn I believe. If you like the classic D2 gameplay, that one is definitely worth a look.