Grim Dawn

Just finished the game and I'm going to start this by saying that the ending was terrible, minor spoilers ahead! I had to check online if that really was the ending. It was, and it feels like... you ever see the movie Commando? It's like when Schwarzenegger chases Sully to the cliff and throws him down, but instead of the movie going on and him finally getting to the real bad guys and getting his revenge and saving the girl, that's the end. Right there on the cliff. That's this game. You kill a guy who was barely at all related to the original thing you were doing and then it ends with not a word about the bigger thing that's going on that you originally set to deal with. Terrible. Gameplay itself is smooth but the game is bogged down with too much unnecessary stuff. The game tries to do the whole Diablo thing with "hey you finished the game, cool, now play it again on the next difficulty", but not only does the ending take away any interest in that, but on your way to the ending you've already gotten sick and tired of scratching your head wondering about the game's mechanics. The game has a million different stats that are poorly explained, there's a kind of divine talent tree thing with different points that don't seem to do much or mean much and just seem tacked on because, hey why not. Trying to decide if a new piece of gear is better than what you already have is such a pain that I just stopped caring at some point near what turned out to be the ending. You'll also get really used to hearing the enemy crossbow sound whenever in a dungeon. It's like a broken record, twap, twap, twap, twap, twap, twap, twap, twap, twap, twap, twap until you find the guy behind some corner. Yeah enemy archers don't understand walls very well. They keep attempting to shoot you through them, and sometimes successfully too. You can use AoE spells to kill enemies behind walls too though. The story is good, except for the end. Such a shame about the ending and sequel baiting.

Diablo 3 should have been like this game :)

Grim Dawn is a super, super fun action RPG in the Diablo 2 style. If you've played that (or Torchlight, Titan Quest, probably a handful of other games as well), you know the drill - kill monsters, get loot, put skill points into your skill tree, that sort of thing. It's a very simple formula, and Grim Dawn doesn't really change the core of it much from previous games. However, it does execute it very, very well. Getting new skills is fun because they all do something cool, level-up timing is good, finding-cool-new-loot timing is good, level design is engaging, the base degree of gameplay challenge is solid, the visual style of the game is cool... It just does everything well. The campaign is also a pretty good length, so even if you don't like replaying games on successively harder difficulties, you'll get your money's worth from it. All in all, if you like this style of game, you should definitely pick up Grim Dawn.

I bought this game after playing Diablo 3 on Xbox 360. While there is nothing wrong with Grim Dawn per se, I do not think that it pushes the action RPG genre ahead in any meaningful way. It is very similar to the Diablo games with its point-and-click style, loot drops, and leveling dynamics. The story line is not particularly interesting, and quests are your typical kill, retrieve, escort, etc. Again, there's nothing wrong with the game if you like these core mechanics. However, I found it no more memorable than Diablo 3 was. I found both games tediously repetitious after a few hours and had to force myself to continue playing. Not a good sign.

can't lay due to graphics issue.