I can't give an 11 point list quite as eloquently as gogo has here, but what I've told customers lately (because I've started playing again since I upgraded from a laptop to a desktop): " I can't tell you that Sacred 2 is better or worse than Grim Dawn or Diablo or POE or Wolcen or anything else. But what I can tell you is that it's NOT Diablo or Grim Dawn or anything else. Sacred 2 has it's own flavor, it's own je ne sais quoi, that I've never encountered in anything else."
With games like Grim Dawn, my focus feels drawn to the destination; finding the best loot and creating the strongest character that I can to continue the story as smoothly as possible. While Sacred 2 has a story, that's not the focus for me; the journey is more fun than the destination. In no other game I've ever played has grinding for the sheer thrill of grinding been so much fun. Part of that is due to attention to detail, especially with character animations. Have you ever really watched the Inquisitor's robes move while he's running? I personally have never seen robes move so fluidly and naturally in any other game. Now, a customer the other day said "But Skyrim..." No it doesn't, not vanilla Skyrim; that's a mod. My god, can you imagine the type of stuff our modding team could create if Sacred 2 (or 1, for that matter) was as easy to mod as Skyrim is? Look at all they've already accomplished, and (if I remember correctly) they're far more hamstringed than the Skyrim modders. Flix explained it once to me, something about modding tools not being released or something, but that was quite a while ago. But damn, the mind boggles if they had modding freedom like Skyrim. Granted, that might be a bad thing a little bit, because if you threw me in the mix, you'd get cyborg succubi tearing through Ancaria on motorcycles while wearing Judas Priest shirts.
Anyway, Sacred 2 has a type of flavor, a type of magic, that's all it's own. I'm happy that I wasn't in charge of making a Sacred 3, I don't think I could ever make anything that could recreate the awe of the sacred series (though I damn well wouldn't have stripped all rpg elements away from it and turned it into an arcade button masher). I don't think I could create a Sacred 4 or even a spiritual successor. The best I think I could do would be a Sacred Ultimate: bringing all sacred characters into Sacred 2's Ancaria. As much as I don't like Sacred 3, I watched several Youtube videos. The guy with black wings looks like he'd be great fun to play in an rpg setting. Such a waste.