I'm sure both of them are very upset.
I played the original games, and they weren’t anything that inspired a whole lot of passion. Other then a tiny bit of steam-punk it was about as generic as it’s possible for an RPG to be.
I’d have liked a few more of the DS1/2 features in DS3 (party mechanics, pack animals), but other then that I’m not sure there was much else worth salvaging that Obsidian didn’t carry over.
Frankly, the DS world presented in DS3 has about 100 times the character of the first two games combined.\
To me this felt like what happened with Dragon Age II. I think what bothers me the most is that all these sequels to great games that I really enjoyed turn out to be substantially different than the name and legacy led to me believe. I think the OP has a point. On its own the game is good but when you associate it with the expectation of its title it really does conjure up false excitement. I don't think I would have bought this game so quickly had I know it wasn't the type of dungeon crawler I've come to expect from the DS series. This isn't because the title isn't good, its just not the kind of game I was looking for. The Fallout comparison is valid as Dungeon Siege is a bit of a cult classic. Only those who wanted a Fallout faithful to its origins really had a problem with the series being hijacked and they were a small crowd. If this were an independent title, or a temporary segue of the series (like Renegade was for Command and Conquer) I don't think there were be too much complaint. Using the name Dungeon Siege III means that, at least for now, hopes of a true successor to the line are dashed. Who knows if Obsidian will reverse course and come out with a Dungeon Siege IV more in line with I and II.
I like that the Multiplayer element of this game is tailored for groups of friends who want to experience the game together. This is infinitely preferable to the level mixing ‘random dropping in and out’ model used in other RPGs.
I agree with the camera complaints.
Its not an unheard of system for Multiplayer. Magicka does roughly the same thing but handles a shared camera much more gracefully (I think we all agree that the camera is horrendous). I have the same gripe as before I won't go off on a rant here, I just wish multiplayer was the same as the previous two titles. There's also the fact that PC players tend to co-op from different boxes that are of significant geographical distances from each other. DS III seems to assume you'll always be in the same room together playing on the same system (i.e., you can definitely tell the PC version is just an afterthought, a port from console once they got it just the way they wanted). Console has a bigger market, and those players tend to be fairly casual, have families, and want something to share. That's fine, just advertise it as such so I can avoid it (a stick on the box or warning before purchasing in Steam will do nicely, hehe).