It's increasingly evident that Christmas is less than two weeks away, as several digital distributors have discounted dozens of titles for the holidays. Steam's year-end event hasn't kicked off yet, though it has bargains on Crysis titles and a handful of Tripwire games. Elsewhere...

Torchlight II is much more of a beast than its predecessor; in terms of scale and ambition, it's right up there with the biggest names in loot-collection and click-based combat. And so of course, Blizzard's Diablo III looms large over the entirety of Torchlight II. How could it not?

As I've been playing, it's been very difficult to evaluate Torchlight II on its own terms, rather than constantly thinking "Oh, so X is different from Diablo III in Y way." But let's get this out of the way: If you liked Diablo III, you will almost surely like Torchlight II.

With Torchlight II due to launch sometime this summer (likely September, many fans believe), Runic Games addressed the community last week with two lengthy posts explaining the current state of development as well as what can be expected of the sequel...