Why does it feel better to read negative comments about Diablo 3, than actually play it?

Diablo 3 is nothing like Diablo 2 was! D3 has crap items! Auction house ruined the game! "Blizzard er noen kuker" - Julius Wuttudal


Etc.

I noticed after two first weeks after Diablo's May launch, the subreddit "Diablo" had lots of criticism. Unknowingly, I started reading this criticism, and found myself agreeing with most of it, even though I didn't think of evaluating the game like that myself previously. I am that easy to influence, but in the end I realized it's really satisfying to read the negative comments and criticism. It's as if some sort of justice is being brought down. Maybe a little bit of revenge too.

What had Blizzard done with Diablo 3 that makes those sort of feelings appear? For most people paying up to 60€ for the game, game play must have been pretty fun throughout the first playthrough, while all the acts still were new. Characters and skills were new, and items were new. The game, somewhat overpriced compared to the standard in gaming, still probably gave around 20-30 hours of gameplay before it got repetitive. That should be reasonable compared to standards regarding pricing and gameplay, no?

The answer to the question above partly is expectations about more or less endless replayability. For many of us, it would be enough to have good items to hunt for. These still exist, but are very predictable and monotonic, and eventually it feels like one keeps finding data with varying numbers. Unfortunately I can't answer why it feels so satisfying to read criticism and negative comments about the game, this is something that Psychology of Video Games may have an answer for.

I still log in from time to time and try to farm act 3 with my underpowered Demon Hunter. I promised myself to ragequit the game every time I swear out loud. So far I have had two runs last week, one lasted for 1 hour and brought me an amulet with 242 Dexterity and 40% critical damage (sold for 5 millions!), and the other one for 10 minutes where I just couldn't stand the frustration and said something really mean and inappropriate about general human beings. Why do I still log in? Because Blizzard has promised new very awesome legendary items with next patch.