So you've waited 11 long years to play Diablo III, and now you're waiting for yet another server error fix, unable to play the game. If you need a quick fix, consider filling that downtime with Heroes Call, an iOS dungeon crawler built in the mold of Blizzard's classic franchise. Even though the game is probably not going to replace the full-on, action role-playing experience on your Mac, tapping your way through Heroes Call feels like a natural fit for the genre -- though the enjoyment is mired a bit in the freemium mud.

Consistent with other games of its ilk, the narrative of Heroes Call is secondary. You're playing as either a magic-powered Plague Wizard or melee-based Blood Knight, tapping monsters through various dungeons to save accursed land of some sort. You won't find quite the same level of depth in Heroes Call as a Diablo entry, but the addictive looting and adventuring is readily present, and the controls work wonderfully on either an iPhone or iPad.

Looking at the core experience – hacking and slashing through monsters for rare loot – Heroes Call is competent without presenting itself as a straight-up Diablo clone. Unfortunately, it does share the same boring skill tree system of Diablo III, simply allowing for the plugging-in of a particular perk every few levels. But the biggest problem with Heroes Call is in how the game encourages in-app purchases.

Heroes Call is a free-to-play release, offering paid upgrades in the form of gems. The reason for the gems is not immediately clear, until the realization you'll have to wait ten minutes to begin the next quest without using gems to bypass the queue. While it's entirely possible to find gems by just adventuring, they're not exactly readily available, and it's unfortunate that Defiant chose such an aggravating means of monetizing its otherwise great game.

The bottom line. An enjoyable action RPG experience optimized for iOS, Heroes Call is a wonderfully addictive game bogged down slightly by the freemium model.