Differences between Dungeon Defenders and Eternity

Solution 1:

Does the new game include all the maps from the original? What about DLC maps, characters, items, etc.?

It includes all maps and challenges from both the original game and the Eternia Shards DLC. It does not have any holiday-themed maps or challenges yet (such as Valentines, Thanksgiving, or Christmas maps). You can also choose any and all heroes, including Summoner, EV, Barbarian and Jester.

What are the 4 new maps?

The 4 new maps are Dread Dungeon, Arcane Library, Magus Citadel, and Embermount Volcano. The first 3 are additions to the original campaign, and Embermount appears to be the beginning of an entirely new campaign that goes beyond the Eternia Shards.

What does it mean when talking about rebalanced loot system?

Loot is now server-side, meaning that they are taking significant and active measures to stop hacking (as it was REALLY prevalent in DD1 and they really didn't have a way to stop it other than banning the hacker when they were tattled on). Map rewards are no longer the absolute best weapons in the game, meaning we are going to see a lot more diversity when it comes to players and the weapons they wield (as opposed to seeing everyone holding Classics and Obsidian weapons).

It's also worth noting that textures are streamed in while you're playing the game, so when you first launch it, almost everything is going to be blurry, or "graphically inferior". In reality, it has almost exactly the same graphics the original Dungeon Defenders has.

For a comprehensive guide on the major differences between the two, read up on the Steam guide Comparing Dungeon Defenders and DD Eternity.