Grim Dawn

I really enjoy the game, including the expansions malmouth & forgotten gods & crucible. It's a lot more interesting and funny than Diablo 3 for me, although i cannot really explain. May be because D3 is only about the stuff, and not really the skills, for me. It's really enjoyable solo too, which is important, and it seems that there is no real "end game", which is good enough for me because i'm casual and my time is limited. No infinite grind, play a complete 3 difficulty mode then reroll a new char to discover new fun is good for me. Graphics are good too, less cartony than D3 and thus more enjoyable. really recommanded hack and slash.

I can see why Grim Dawn appeals to ARPG fans. As the game’s description aptly states, Grim Dawn “features complex character development” along with countless item combinations and choices. In fact, it fulfills these promises so well that it turned my interest off as a casual player of ARPGs. When I say “casual,” I don’t use the term in any derogatory sense, but rather describe those who play ARPGs for the mindless click-click hack-and-slash. Sometimes I have an urge to turn the brain off and relax, which Diablo 2, and even 3, excelled at. Grim Dawn requires strategic thinking, careful planning, and deft maneuvering, none of which are what I was looking for. If you’re a passionate player of ARPGs and seeking a more thoughtful game than a Diablo title, then Grim Dawn is highly recommended. However, if you’re like me and searching for a simple hack-and-slash action, I would look elsewhere.

This is a game I was looking forward to for a long time and was ultimately disappointed when I finally played it. I really enjoyed Titan Quest, and figured this would be like it; it was and it wasn't. I initially liked the title for the first 10 hours or so, but after that, things went downhill and kept going downhill. Initially, the story was immersing and you felt like your choices mattered. Initially, you were finding loot upgrades every 2-3 levels. Initially, exploration was well rewarded, and combat felt great. The first boss fight was great. So... what went wrong? After the first boss fight, the story started to fall apart and you stopped feeling like the choices you were making were meaningful at all. I stopped finding loot upgrades, and went for 5-10 levels to upgrade some items and other items I couldn't upgrade at all and had been using for 20+ levels (I quit at lvl 46). Loot did drop, but the itemization in this game is far worse than something like Diablo 3, where the game favored loot drops for other classes (got tons of green/blue guns, wands, caster gear and ranged gear) but not for my class (Warder). As a result, there wasn't much point to exploration or backtracking as the loot dropped never was useful to me. Combat got worse and worse, as enemies not only got very "bullet spongy" and many enemies were spawning at 3, 4 or 5 levels above my character and thus a fight with 5 enemies took me about 30 seconds to kill, and as you run into packs of 5 enemies constantly, I progressed very very slowly. The place in the story I quit at was at Fort Ikron, so about 50% into the last chapter of the game. I should note that this was all on the easiest difficulty setting, and as I was getting constantly destroyed on easiest setting I couldn't progress anymore. I would recommend playing the game for the first chapter of the game, as it got a lot of love and great development, but the rest of the game is absolutely terrible, so I'd wait for a major discount.

I picked it up wanting an ARPG to play solo. I was swayed by the amazing reviews. Gameplay is great and it gets regularly tweaked and updated. It's fantastic from that perspective, but in terms of the atmosphere it truly lives up to it's name. It's incredibly dark and depressing which was fun at first but for a solo play-through the tone makes it hard to keep going after awhile. I can't say that's the fault of the game. I got it knowing what to expect but didn't expect the bleakness to have such an impact. So if you are more of a solo oriented gamer probably better to try Titan Quest instead.

More than worthy successor to Titan Quest and the standard set by Diablo 2. Hours and hours of entertainment guaranteed.