Im really surprised that the overall sentiment towards D2 wasnt disappointment after D1. Im going to chalk up D2 as the FFVII of Diablo and D1 as the FFVI for the sake of a bad comparison. Im going to assume less people played D1 overall than D2.
Source: N4G PC Picked up Diablo 1 and Played it again It is the best Diablo I ever played