Grim Dawn

If you plan on playing this multiplayer, search the internet for "grim dawn multiplayer problems". The multiplayer is only provisionally useful -- you might be able to connect and play with friends if you're lucky, but there's a very high chance you won't, and nothing you do (turn off firewalls, port forwarding, setting up DMZ, changing to low IP address in your range, hold your mouth just right) will work. I'm to the point where it has completely ruined the experience and soured the game for me, as I've spent too much time holding up friends while we try to get it to work when it should. If you want to play a multiplayer ARPG, find another one -- avoid the frustration. It's well-documented and well-known, and there hasn't been a real solution. And looks like there won't be.

As many others have pointed out: this game is way more fun than Diablo 3 - and has nicer graphics. Linux users: it works very well on wine with dxkv.

Overall I would recommend this game over many others. This is what Diablo 3 should have strived to be! Pros: Visually it looks great, running well on my 7700k system at 4k, almost all options maxed (no AA needed/used). The audio is wonderful. The music is memoriable and feels right for each "area," including a few cool rock music tracks during maybe 4-5 boss fights. The quests were nothing special or memoriable, but they were enough to keep you moving from point A > B. Combat mechanics were OK. Nothing special or complex outside of maximizing DPS stats, but far better than point and click games like Diablo 3. In this game you can use your character's movement (around the battlefield) to try and control the situation. There was a perfect amount of loot dropped from the beginning to the end of the game, for me to switch my build completely twice! Cons: Almost no traps anywhere, other than 1 small area with mines and 1 tomb with spikes. Lacking. No pits of fire or even magical ward traps? Really? Many walls in "Port Valibury" were not see-through. They worked perfectly fine everywhere else but that area seemed to be bugged or was overlooked. The mouse pointer is difficult to see. I found no option to change it's size to 2X, or turn off hardware mouse cursor, or anything that would help. I had to jiggle my mouse around to find where my mouse cursor was during combat and it was annoying. I wish there were environmental dangers or objects used to create opportunities during combat. For example breaking oil jars and lighting them on fire when enemies are sitting near them, exploiting their position. Or using a spell to douse a light then throwing a jar of scorpions at an group of enemies who move near where the light was in order to investigate. That example may be complex to design, but even some simple mechanics would have been nice. *Overall a great hack and slash. 4/5 due to minor overlooked annoyances. I am looking forward to their next RPG.

Hamburgers are delicious: chewy, juicy, satisfying. Nothing else like it, and for that very reason, also quite ubiquitous here. You go to almost any restaurant in my country and chances are they sell hamburgers just to please the children. However and obviously, there are also restaurants that specialize in them, and they are truly to be treasured; when you go to one, ANY one, you have a pretty good idea of what you're going to get, no matter the name on the sign out front. BUT... just because that place sells a thing that you've liked other places is no guarantee that you're going to like the one served in THIS restaurant, no matter how much they try to make it just like the other place's thing that they know you like; sometimes you just enjoy that other restaurant's hamburgers more and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Grim Dawn is Titan Quest (which in itself Diablo II) with a "grimdark" paint job (hence the clever, clever name and all the zombies and amorality). Kill, Loot, Optimize, Sell, Repeat. It's an addictive gameplay loop for a reason. I'm not going to say that this game makes any leaps and bounds in the genre because it absolutely doesn't; what it does is what anything in the genre does, no more, no less, and *that's fine*. If you're going out for a hamburger, then you'd be upset if you got something else, so the fact that this game does what it does and as *well* as it does is reason enough to recommend it to people. I really like the setting and the music, so I'll choose this restaurant over, say, Torchlight Fish'n'Grits (although FATE Diner and Coffee Shop is always tempting for me). None of the above means a whit, however, if you're just plain ol' sick of burgers, so if Titan Quest put you to sleep, skip this. As for myself, I still love burgers. *grins*

1100 hrs at time of review, and over the years I keep coming back to Grim Dawn. Devs keep updating the game, and I'm still nowhere done with all the types of characters I already wanted to play. Too much game, not enough hours in the day.