Whenever I was young, I used to drop thousands of hours into Diablo II.

Every waking moment of my life was spent grinding my way to max level on all characters, gathering immense amounts of loot, and playing around with friends for hours at a time. The game offered me massive amounts of reward, enjoyability, and replayability. So, naturally, when I heard that Blizzard was coming out with a new Diablo game, I thought my prayers had been answered. No more watered-down Triple-A games; this was it, my love of gaming was supposed to pool back into me with Diablo III.

Then I was disappointed -- severely disappointed. Diablo III was nothing like the game I had played back in the day and I couldn't understand how Blizzard could screw up something so beautiful. With nothing left to turn to, I sauntered about the internet, searching for the ARPG that would take me away from the pain Blizzard had brought to myself. Torchlight was decent, but nothing too special. Drakensang was okay, but nothing to write home about.

Then I stumbled upon Path of Exile. I was hesitant, to be honest with you. The game looked solid from the screenshots, but I could never really know unless I downloaded it. Let me tell you, after 400 hours of this game, this is completely raising the standards for ARPGs and nothing (as of the date on this review) could ever come close to the quality of this game.

• A massive skill tree, making for complete build diversity.
  
• Overwhelmingly brilliant, lore-based atmospheres.
  
• Visually stunning; what Diablo should have been.
  
• Endless amounts of fun, especially with friends.
  
• Developers that actually care! Amazing F2P business model.

I will forever be loyal to Path of Exile. This gave me my love of gaming back. This is what Diablo III should have been and wishes it was. If you're not sold yet, go ahead and download the game for a trial run. Every bit of content is free and there's nothing to lose. I guarantee you won't ever regret it.

Update for Atlas of Worlds

My review was done before the Atlas of Worlds expansion hit and I would like to reassure anyone wondering: yes, this expansion is amazing and, yes, the game is still just as good as it has always been.