If it's anything like Torchlight 1, that "intense" feel is just your character being insanely overpowered. I don't like to hate on TL, but the game got boring fast; no variety whatsoever. I'm guessing torchlight 2 is more of a suger rush, where as D3 will be a "12 hour energy"
The randomness of the outer worlds in diablo 2 was so generic. They were just big squares and didn't feel like an actual environment. From what I've seen of the D3 beta, the environments look much more genuine and intricate. Even if there is less over-world randomization in D3, that negative is vastly over-shadowed by the positives.
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