Sanitarium had also a nice hackNslash sequence for like, 5 minutes 8P

Ah, i see, but then again, the term is quite loose. Since it's origins do in fact come from swordbased games, we have more recent titles, which are of the same genre, yet have no swords. Shadowgrounds, Space Siege, and one other SG clone that came out recently. And then we have the aforementioned Druid.
And then we have those two Raven titles..MageSlayer and Take No Prisoners.
There are also those ugly Russian Alien/Zombie Shooters.
I do remember some time ago, someone tried to add a similar genre, "shoot n" something, but i don't think it held for long.
I'm not arguing the term, i'm arguing about the terms use, which should not be strict, and it's better for all of us, to call some games HNS instead of "action rpg". The genre came a long way, and the name is not precise, that's really all i wanted to mention;)
I see no sense in adding an additional genre "shoot and kill" or anything, no point in creating a second name, for something that already exists, especially, if the only difference is the setting,
See, if we wanted to be literal, we'd have to rename RTS, or stop calling many games that, because there's not much strategy involved in those.

I suppose you're right. It's just that I'd never refer to a game such as, for instance, Alien Shooter, as a HNS. To be honest, I've never seen the term used much as a genre definition, and always only to describe games that were heavy on melee combat.

I believe i had the same mindset, but never found a better general term for those games, so decided to preach the "more open meaning" of the term. Especially nowdays when a bit more of those scifi ones came out [thank You, Frozenbyte!:)]. :)

My favorite hack and slash game is Severance: Blade of Darkness.
The game to this day still has hands down the BEST melee combat of any game w hen it comes to weapons. No other game has even came close to how good the combat was, even Jedi Knight and such can't compare to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcnoPXLzeTY
Also some honorable mentions:
Rune
Die by the Sword
Drakan

I don't remember that?
Anyway, does Mount&Blade count? More of an RPG, but excellent combat.

The first level? Where you pick up the scythe at the pumpkin patch?

Ah yes, i remember now :)

Severance: Blade of Darkness comes immediately to mind.
Then there is NOX (found it more fun and MUCH less repetitive than Diablo 1-2), God of War (good stress-reliever), Drakan (you get to fly on a dragon) and the beat 'em ups D&D: Tower of Doom / Shadows Over Mystara and Golden Axe 3 (you have characters with melee weapons, so that coounts, right? :p )

No one has done it better than Diablo and Diablo 2. I did enjoy Divine Divinity though.

This is what I came in here to say. Really good game.

For me, it's Din's Curse. Torchlight is pretty nice too, but a bit shallow. But I still have quite a few games of the genre waiting for me to play - Divine Divinity, Dungeon Siege 2, etc.
Oh, the Spellforce series is pretty nice too. It's not the traditional kind of "hack and slash", but I guess that still applies somehow.
I've never played Severance, but I do remember it was one of the first games ever to use embedded Python as scripting language. I'd like to see it on GOG.

The Bard's tale. Hack'n'Slash game with the best story ever. For H'n'S.

No Sacred 1/2 love? Only has 200 or so levels to grind and four or five difficulty levels I think?
Having said that, wouldn't rank it amongst my favorite games. I think Titan Quest would be the one thanks to its mythological roots and the graphics/gameplay.

I've mentioned Sacred among my favourites ;-).
It may not have as much depth as TQ, or as good a story as the Diablo games, but it's the best freeform H'n'S game, IMO.