A Diversity of Roguelikes
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If a Roguelike filled with stats and choices and leveling is what you want, there's a strong alternative, released just a few months before Isaac was: Dungeons Of Dredmor. From the start of Dredmor, you're presented with choices. First difficulty, but then a pile of different skills 33 to be precise, of which each character can learn seven. This includes various weapon, magic, and crafting skills, but also odder traits, like Vampirism. Any one of these can significantly alter the way you play the game. There's also a wide variety of different items and base statistics, not to mention turn-based combat, making it sound like an ideal game for the old-fashioned RPG fanatic. It is for many it could be for you! - but it doesn't quite work for me.
There's just too much going on in Dungeons Of Dredmor. The chief offender may be the half a dozen different crafting skills, in a game where it's difficult to survive long enough to get the items to craft. The statistics are broken into six different main categories, each with their own subcategory. The game is a little too clever with its stats, renaming each something different from the norm: instead of Strength, Burliness; instead of Charisma, it uses Savvy. Burliness is then divided into Melee Power, Armor Absorption, and Trap Sight Radius. Any item you pick up has the chance to improve either the stats or the sub-stats. It's complicated enough that the game even recommends simply picking items based on how well they make the numbers go up. It can get overwhelming.
