PoE is a difficult game for me to review. On one hand, I've gotten significant enjoyment from it over the years (as can be gleaned from the hundreds of hours I've put into the game on steam, which doesn't include time played prior to it being on steam through the stand alone launcher). However, the game is designed to be a slogfest. I find it highly appropriate that a game made by Grinding Gears Games is dedicated primarily towards grinding for gear. Much of the game content is endgame, with gear requirements that will have you hitting a brick wall even if you follow a build guide for your character. Of course, you can always buy the gear you need, but PoE's trading mechanism makes buying and selling gear much more problematic (as it requires you to browse through the forums or use 3rd party sites to find sellers and list items, as there is no ingame auction capabilities). Add into this that many items (especially 6 linked items, which are common in even so called budget builds on the forums) can be extrodinarily expensive (e.g. 10s of times the value of loot I've found in the past 300 hours of play), and your options are basically to either realize you will never reach end game content or will have to dedicate significant hours (hundreds if not thousands) to get where you want. This can be shortened if you're willing to play item merchant, but even then you'll need to spend significant time to build up inventory and camp out online to respond to buyers (and playing artifact merchant is not what I am interested in doing in my limited gaming time).

If you are looking for a hardcore ARPG and the above doesn't dissuade you, then I would say to give this a try. If you don't mind knowing you will never reach endgame content due to time constraints and are looking for a mindless ARPG, there is fun to be had here. But for most people I know, with too many other requirements on their time, I would not recommend this game. There are other ARPGs out there that are more rewarding for the casual player who isn't planning on devoting hundreds and hundreds of hours to the game.

PoE is a difficult game for me to review. On one hand, I've gotten significant enjoyment from it over the years (as can be gleaned from the hundreds of hours I've put into the game on steam, which doesn't include time played prior to it being on steam through the stand alone launcher). However, the game is designed to be a slogfest. I find it highly appropriate that a game made by Grinding Gears Games is dedicated primarily towards grinding for gear. Much of the game content is endgame, with gear requirements that will have you hitting a brick wall even if you follow a build guide for your character. Of course, you can always buy the gear you need, but PoE's trading mechanism makes buying and selling gear much more problematic (as it requires you to browse through the forums or use 3rd party sites to find sellers and list items, as there is no ingame auction capabilities). Add into this that many items (especially 6 linked items, which are common in even so called budget builds on the forums) can be extrodinarily expensive (e.g. 10s of times the value of loot I've found in the past 300 hours of play), and your options are basically to either realize you will never reach end game content or will have to dedicate significant hours (hundreds if not thousands) to get where you want. This can be shortened if you're willing to play item merchant, but even then you'll need to spend significant time to build up inventory and camp out online to respond to buyers (and playing artifact merchant is not what I am interested in doing in my limited gaming time). If you are looking for a hardcore ARPG and the above doesn't dissuade you, then I would say to give this a try. If you don't mind knowing you will never reach endgame content due to time constraints and are looking for a mindless ARPG, there is fun to be had here. But for most people I know, with too many other requirements on their time, I would not recommend this game. There are other ARPGs out there that are more rewarding for the casual player who isn't planning on devoting hundreds and hundreds of hours to the game.