Diablo IV, Season 5, appears to be exactly what I expected...

 

I am surprised only that people are surprised.

I'll admit that I was a little disappointed by the wave of overly-generous positive responses to D4's fourth season, which literally just added loot to a game designed to be entirely about chasing loot. D4's "Loot Reborn" season (no, really, they called it that) sanded down some of the points of highest friction with the game's loot system, and also sanded down some of the friction with the game's open world by requiring players to spend less time interacting with it, but it added almost nothing new, and did nothing to address the game's more fundamental issues:

• Monsters were still boring. 
• Bosses were still boring. 
• Items were still boring - even the Season Of Loot's extensive rework of items couldn't make D4's item interesting as items. 
• Unique items, in particular, were boring.
  
• Revamped Helltides were more engaging and more frequent, but the open world itself wasn't any better - it was still a lifeless, featureless blank void of a game space in which players didn't want to spend time. Since even Helltides get boring after a while, this adds up to an open world with is, say it with me now, still boring.
  
• Dungeons were still boring, as were Nighmare Dungeons, which are just the same dungeons with a little stank on them. 
• The end-game uber unique item grind was still boring and frustrating. 

And so on.

The new content wasn't any better, either.

• As predicted, the Loot Season's new crafting systems, Tempering and Masterworking, were just a time-consuming grind of busywork. They were still useful, in the sense of being an additional source of power for the players' characters, and were therefore used, but they were not fun or interesting to engage with, and players have done nothing but complain about them. 
• The new uber-unique-dropping boss, Andariel, was fun for a few fights, but palled quickly after that, and needing to grind materials to craft the widget needed to access Andariel's boss fight was as onerous as ever, especially since the reward of an uber unique wasn't guaranteed.
• The Pit was exactly what it looked like, which was a Diablo III Greater Rift. Even for players who enjoyed D3's GR system, these got old quickly, and it bears remembering that a lot of D3's player base decamped for Path of Exile specifically because GRs didn't provide enough variety of interest, challenge, or gameplay.

Even the most positive comments which I saw were full of qualifiers. The game was in the best state it had ever been (a low bar considering the state of the game at launch), it was the most fun it had even been (again, a low bar), and it was definitely a step in the right direction even though it didn't add anything truly new (also debatable). 

Streamers who were already committed to playing the game for at least the start of a new season looked visibly relieved at the prospect that their experience would, at least, suck less than it had previously. They proclaimed the game to be fixed now. They expressed surprise over the experience of having fun with Diablo IV, even though they'd previously claimed to be having fun with every new season of Diablo IV. And they spoke hopefully of season four being evidence that Blizzard were back, baby! and predicted that season five would blow everybody away.

Diablo IV's season five PTR dropped just over a week ago, and all the streamers and content creators that were singing season four's praises, confidently point to a Season Of Loot as the positive proof that the line could only  go up from here, have had a week to test its new content (effectively a "horde mode" nightmare dungeon), along with some of its new and reworked unique items.

They are... less than thrilled.

Season four isn't faring much better:

So... on balance, I would say that Diablo IV is still not fun. Its open world is still not fun. Its monsters and bosses are still not fun, or interesting. Its item and crafting systems are still not fun or interesting to engage with. Class and skill balance is still bad. And its end game isn't just content-poor, it's entirely devoid of new ideas, trapped in a cycle of recycling Diablo III content which was not enough to hold players for that game, either.

So bad is the current state of D4 that some media outlets are recommending that Diablo fans play D3 instead in the run-up to Vessel of Hatred's launch -- a completely tone-deaf take which completely ignores the simply fact that D4 was explicitly designed to bring in players that were new to the Diablo franchise, for whom playing D3 means buying D3, which is definitely not worth it for anyone who's already not having fun with D4.

So, no, my opinion of this game has not changed. Don't take my word for it, though. Take FrankieFresh's word.

"I'm done being the knee. For once in my life, Blizzard is not going to bend me over and stuff me like a Thanksgiving turkey."
-- FrankieFresh

Or PerraGaming's: 

 

"... kind of shit [...] It's Season Four, just worse."

Or wudijo's: "Oh boy, if only anything worked correctly."

I think I see a pattern.

If you haven't already bought Diablo IV, then it's still a safe skip; wait for its "battle chest" version (i.e. the game plus the expansion) to drop below half price before even considering a purchase. If you bought it but tapped out either before or during season one, and were wondering whether the game is worth coming back to, the answer is no. If you were wondering whether the expansion was worth a pre-order, the answer is no.  If you were considering any D4 bundle costing $70 USD or more, then I recommend you hold onto your cash; the price will come down, and you're not missing anything by holding out.