Diablo 3 is too colorful and looks like it has been heavily influenced by games like World of Warcraft (in a bad way).
Contrast that to D3, where I literally beat the game the first time without using a single health potion. You were a super-hero who could punch a skeleton and send the pieces flying at level 1. And while I can certainly see the allure of such experiences (hell, I enjoy them too in other games), it was not what I wanted from a Diablo experience.
LOL. Thank You this really did made me laugh out loud. I think that is a very accurate description of D1.
Path of Exile might be more up your alley. It's more D2-like both in atmosphere and depth -- it's more about traversing giant skill trees to slowly customize your character, than D3's "choose a few unique skills and learn to use them together well" model.
Funny, my one main gripe about PoE (and also D2) are the superdark graphics. I miss the WoW art style, personally... guess it's not for everyone :)
At least in the most important aspect for me. Itemization.
Diablo 3 is a game that I play every few seasons for a week after ladder reset and then stop because I have a BiS item set (if you ignore Ancient/Primal Items, which just arent fun for me, as its just "same item, just minimally better").
PoE on the other hand just goes into the completely opposite direction and you need to basically be a full-time twitch streamer to do everything in game (or be one of the 0.01% of the playerbase that has the game fully figured out including crafting/trading)
Not to mention that in PoE I can never actually relax when I play endgame. I love Diablo 2 for being able to farm some items after work and not have to on edge everywhere.
I tried playing PoE on my Steam Deck last league and I just stopped after a while because I would die all the time because I didnt see some random mob that would one-shot me on the small screen.