I played D2 and haven't played D3, however it looks like the same game with better graphics, so take this with a grain of salt. How D2 worked is you have a bunch of 'people' that are representative of the population of your country, and they care for things a certain amount. As it is a political simulator your job is to make as many of them happy as you can. the game does a great job of handling this with policies and budgets you get to decide upon, but keep in mind everyone likes a booming economy, lots of government spending, and no deficit. it is doubtful that you will be able to achieve such a utopia in a short four year span so you need to do what you can for people's happiness now. Now the bad part is that this whole thing is in a vacuum, so if you decide to fire your entire military and police force you won't have to worry about your neighbor invading you, or some rebel faction starting a civil war. If you decide to cut taxes and give incentives to big business they don't flock to you from other countries, or your existing ones don't begin to use that as leverage to corner markets abroad. At some point they will involve some outside influences to give a challenge and some variety to their scenarios, at which point the game will be worth more than $5-$10, until then wait until the price drops.
Not too long after it came out I picked this game up, it sported 3d graphics back when everything was going 3d. It may sound like this game is just like any other RPG of its day, but that isn't true. Two things separate this game from the rest: First the alchemy and lock picking was quite innovative for its time, as you didn't need recipes to make potions and discover new recipes, and neither were the components story line restricted. The lock picking was more interactive than the typical hidden roll of the die. Second the story was that of a novelist, and as such was really well done, which was during a time of linear gameplay, and rehashed stories, making it really stand out. Now you may be wondering why i only gave it 3 stars out of 5, well first off I don't think changing the rating based on price is accurate, as price changes over time and sales. Second the game like most western RPGs is brief compared to JRPGs, which at the time was a bad thing due the linear format, as there isn't a lot of room to do things differently, although this a failing of most western RPGs when the game was made. Third as a result of budget issues that plagued game makers during the mid 90's the game had been half made by one developer and finished off with another one, and it shows. In the end it is a good game well worth the $5 GOG is asking. It would have been really good if sierra had gotten around to making the sequel they had planned on, possibly fleshing out the ideas laid out in this game, instead modern open ended games use similar alchemy systems, and a handful of games have tried to make a better lock picking minigame, but have yet to have any greater success in my opinion than this game had.
