Missing something.
That sums up Sacred compared to Diablo. The learning curve doesn't take long to learn for the game, but the story drags to a halt after about 15 minutes of game play. I didn't even know what I was doing or who I was helping 20 minutes into the game; just running around completing pointless side quests.
Like other people have stated the NPCs lack any personality, and you could care less whether you want to help them or not. Despite NWN's flaws, I felt at least emotional attachments or interest in the plots of the NPCs when I played it. It just had that special feel. It's devoid in Sacred.
While the graphics are pretty good and the sound FX are great for the monsters and enemies, it's fairly linear and traveling across the game world is just incredibly tedious. Go 10 minutes to the right, 15 minutes down, 10 back up, 5 to the right. It becomes mind blowing after a while.
The loot system is fun, but your inventory fills up QUICK. While people complain about the 5 slots for weapons, I thought it was cool because your equipped weapons in those 5 weapon slots DID NOT take up inventory space as well (a la every other RPG). However you never get backpacks or other items/containers to store loot, so the whole game you're killing enemies and selling. W..T...F?? Why have every enemy drop 50 items so you're full after 3 minutes? This should be called "RPG merchant".
All in all, the combat is cool, the spells are nicely animated, and the weapons and armor switch-out is really detailed and beautiful. It seems the game was well thought out and animated, but never fully came to fruition.
The monsters respawn in crazy record numbers, but unlike other people's reviews, the monsters are super easy after about level 18 for me. The only enemies who gave me a challenge at all were the giant dragons. It makes it hard to go from point A to B, which is already tedious, through never ending groups of monsters. Horse control is horrible, mounting/dismounting is buggy and annoying. Takes 10 minutes to get off and on. No key binds.
All in all, this is a cool game, but defintely has its limitations. Pick it up and play, have some fun, but don't expect an epic classic or too much from this game.