I describe the difference between action and story-based RPGs in much the same way as Elliot_Kane did earlier. In an action-RPG, the focus is the action/combat, with minimal interest in roleplaying (acting a character with a very particular personality), dialogue, and story. Action RPGs, to me, usually refer to the loot and level grinding games which I love, like the Diablos, Titan Quest, Dungeon Siege and the like, where the combat can be fast-paced and not necessarily relying on player skill over character skill. I put story-based RPGs on a separate branch. These are the games like Planescape: Torment, the Baldur's Gate series, etc. Some developers like calling their games action-RPGs where I would not.
For instance, Mass Effect was described as an action-RPG. However, the fact that I can put the game on the easiest difficulty and make combat insubstantial in the game, while focusing on story, dialogue, and characters (of which there was plenty of each), means that it may have had action-RPG elements but the focus wasn't the combat/action. There were huge stretches of the game where I had no combat whatsoever. Compare that to the Diablos; could you go for 30 minutes of actual gameplay (not including selling/trading items) without combat action? Of course not.
I expect that the use of the term "action-RPG" as it applies to Div2 is supposed to suggest that combat is an integral part of the game (i.e. that there's plenty of it) but that it isn't necessarily the focus, just as in Mass Effect. It's unlikely to be too twitchy, like an FPS game relying on player keyboard/mouse skills instead of character-based abilities. For the latter, I'm grateful. I don't care for twitch-based combat at all.
