I'm all for "graphics don't make a game" but after this long in development and the size of Blizzard it had better look nice. It also has to deal with Torchlight 2 (& maybe 3 if it keeps getting pushed) and you know that's going to look better with each PC iteration. Good on Blizzard for making a nice looking game run smoothly on a laptop but I've got a desktop PC and there're expectations you either meet, exceed, or fail. I'll wait on the release, whenever that is, before judging.

I agree with you A-a. The cost for gaming PCs that people throw around is garbage. If you're a home builder it comes down to $100-$200 per year to stay just behind the curve and keep a damn nice box. If you want the neon, water-cooled, striker, deluxe, extreme edition you can triple that but you're running bleeding edge tech. Also consider that you pay more for your console every time you buy a game due to licensing fees. Similarly factor in the XBox Live cost over the life of your console and it really starts adding up. I've got maybe 12 games for my PS3 and I'm guessing Sony gets $10 from every one. If I kept that instead I'd have a new motherboard or a couple gig of RAM. I still love my PS3 and consider it a great investment but it's nothing on my PC.

Nice work and fairly exhaustive. I don't know what's with the AMDs - these numbers don't make a lot of sense when compared to other games around. My X2 6000 often bests the E6600 but according to that I'll be lucky to beat the E6300. I laugh when I hear people say what's the advantage of higher resolution with respect to strategy/RTS games. My answer - an arseload of difference. If you only saw two pixels in front of Mario you'd have a hard time jumping those koopas.

I agree with most of what Andrew Park says in his commentary. I get the feeling that almost all the people who went to E3 shouldn't have been there anyway, no wonder they are shutting public access off. It'll probably go back to an open convention in a couple of years but have much stricter entry conditions.