Flixerflax;
There was no snobbery involved, or actually any opinion intended in what I said (though it would have been more accurate to say that action RPGs lack depth, rather than lack substance). Graphics do tend to be more of a main feature in action RPGs, compared to story based RPGs (though not as central as in FPS games, for example).
I don't avoid action RPGs by default, or judge them by anything other than whether they are fun to play (perhaps modified a bit by length or price, as with any game), but there needs to be something more than just a weapon / skill upgrade cycle to keep my interest.
Thirion;
Better graphics are of course more desirable, but when judging a game, I just don't put much weight on that. I have played a few classic RPGs that I missed when they were released, or re-played some that I had finished before, and dated graphics don't really bother me. Actually, out-dated controls are more of an issue with me for old games (after playing adventure games with context sensitive mouse cursors, it is really rough going back to some kind of menu for manual action selection every time you want to switch between looking / picking up / talking / etc).
Maybe I'm just the visual equivalent to being tone deaf, but I don't see that any of the screenshots you linked to were significantly better than D2:ED's graphics. However, if Larian takes advantage of the release delay, patches or subsequent addons (if any) to improve the graphics, or individual aspects, then great.
