Darkspore a Diablo/Pokemon hybrid from Maxis, is in open beta right now. It's on Steam and probably elsewhere as well.

Has anybody else checked this out? I downloaded it recently and am really pleasantly surprised. It looks like they took the great editor technology from Spore and found gameplay that actually fits rather than shallow minigames. It's a very, very multiplayer-centric hack'n'slash like Diablo, but it has some innovative changes to the formula reminiscent of Pokemon. You have a number of heroes; you can only use so many at once; they have different types, and no one type is effective against all others; your individuals heroes do not level up, but instead you just collect better equipment and body modifications which you can share with all your heroes, even brand new ones; and all data is stored on persistent online servers, eliminating all the hacked loot in Diablo II.

The developers are (or were) also answering questions at reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gq03c/we_are_a_group_of_designers_programmers_artists/

I saw this as well. I will be checking it out this weekend and will post my opinion. Looks very interesting.

Sounds interesting but I had some trouble downloading/installing the game using the updater (I couldn't find any way to run the game). I am slightly apprehensive to try the full download, past experience has left a bad taste in my mouth about installing a possibly out of date multi-gb installation (damn you DC Universe Online, damn you!).

I was very very excited about this after seeing some screen shots. Sadly, it requires a persistent online connection to play single player, which puts it in my 'would not purchase' bucket. If they ever release an off-line version (Console, PC, don't care), I'll be all over that. Looks great!

I'm not playing, certainly not buying, this game on principle.
Maxis was one of the few developers left in the business making *good* simulation games (they were one of the few developers doing simulation games at all, if you look away from flight and car simulations).
They should be focusing on Sim City 5 rather than compromising their resumé by making hack 'n' slash games.
Bah!
Where's Will Wright when you need him?!