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So after 400 hours I think it's finally time I reviewed the best ARPG in the market, this will be a long review, but if you are a Single Player person, or coop player at most, that wants to try Path of Exile(PoE) for the first time, then this review is for you.

So as a Diablo 2 player that played it single player and coop, I always liked ARPGs, and as it happens to all of us, Path of Exile shadow looms large over the genre and your curiosity eventually gets picked up by it. You probably have the same fears as me.

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"Always online... is it multiplayer? it's some kind of MMO where I have to do dungeons with other people?"

Luckily the answer is no.

"It's free to play, surely it's designed in a way to force you to pay to complete the campaign"

Believe it or not, this is another No. You can complete its lengthy 10 act campaign without spending a single coin in the game. You even can complete it with all the characters and not pay a single dime. And if you don't want to play with other people you aren't forced at any time to do so. The microtransactions are mostly cosmetics, and extra space for the stash isn't really necessary for the campaign.

Now you probably see the crazy amount of hours of some people in the reviews and think "Wait I have a life besides this game, is the campaign that long? I have to dedicate my life to the game?" Well... here is where it gets complicated.

PoE's campaign can take you around 60+ hours if you clean all the zones, do all the side-quests and hear all the dialogues. It's structured in a way to avoid the classic "win the game 3 times in Normal, Nightmare and Hell difficulties" so that here the difficulty escalates as you progress through all the 10 acts. So if you want to play casually just once a week to unwind and kill some monsters it's great! They really nailed how to sidestep the repeated playthroughs of the genre. Kudos to the team.

"Wait, what about that crazy skill tree? I don't want to read a wiki or a guide, I just want to play!"

The gigantic skill tree may be intimidating but you have to think that the game just dumps the (passive) skills of different classes in one screen, that's why it seems daunting. Imagine if Diablo 2 dropped all the skills of the 3 trees of each character in one screen... PoE's skill tree is the result. At first just focus on the path closest to your starting point (varies depending each class). Then, when you are comfortable with the game, you'll start to see other ramifications and possibilities. So feel free to experiment as you level up, try crazy combinations and see if it fits your playstyle, the great thing about it is that you can do some pretty varied builds with it. Active skills are another matter that I can't fit here due to the max char count of steam reviews.

"Ok, yes, but you have 400+ hours what did you do after winning the campaign?"

Here is where PoE gets problematic...
I played the Atlas of Worlds, PoE's Endgame. Which is basically a gigantic map with something like 150 levels connected between them. What I like about it's that it has a clear goal with it's own story related to it. It's not just killing mobs to get better gear, and so on, where you feel like the horse constantly chasing the carrot. Here you have to get better gear to kill the final(s) bosse(s) of the game. Previously, these were two ancient beings that created the Atlas (or something like that) and always appeared from time to time randomly and gave the end game some really interesting backstory. Now, PoE being a Game as Service kind of game, things get changed up. Sadly the Atlas changed and I don't find it as interesting as in the past with the new bosses (Conquerors of the Atlas). I think it's possible to access the old bosses but it requires doing something special and it's not integrated into the Atlas like the current bosses. But it still retains interesting aspects and mechanics that you should try all the same. It's quite unique.

Another problem with the endgame is that the difficulty escalates quite steeply. And the way you play the campaign becomes almost obsolete. Your build will probably need adjusting. And here is where a lot people go searching for "popular builds". This part is up to you. But if you are an old fart like me that doesn't understand where is the fun in copying a build; then the game will get unforgiving and will tire you before you complete the endgame. It becomes a grind the more you progress (I reached tier 10 levels out of 14 or 15 tiers, half the Atlas i.e.). Most people just look up a guide, copy a build from said guide, and even get the items needed for the build trading them with other players, so no looting, just farming currency. Yeah I know, kids these days right? I personally don't get any fun from equipping a player in an ARPG by farming currency and trading instead of earning your loot killing difficult bosses. Or by copying someone else's character. You can play like me and ignore the "social" aspect, and without reading any build guides. But the endgame doesn't seem designed for that as I said before since the Atlas becomes quite difficult. You will need hours upon hours to reach a good understanding of the mechanics, it's nice to discover the intricacies of it, but the game may burn you out before you master it. The good part of PoE being a Game as Service is that there is always new content as an excuse for you to go back and try a new character.

"I heard there is new content/expansions/leagues all the time, what's that?"

A league offers a new mechanic that is present as you play the campaign. This gets integrated with it's own theme and you can get cosmetics by completing it's own set of challenges. If you have something resembling a life and other hobbies you can forget about completing all challenges. You have three months to complete everything before the next leagues comes out and the new mechanic gets incorporated in the standard game. If you want to play at your own pace I recommend trying a league once and then you can continue in the standard game once the league ends. If you want to try different characters, going with a new one with each league isn't a bad idea. But again forget challenges, they are only for the hardcore audience that complete everything in two weeks (probably less). If PoE isn't your only game or hobby after work, then the 3 months space may be too little.

"The story? How is it? Should I listen to the NPCs?"

For ARPGs standard, it's good. It has some highs. Some parts I recommend hearing/reading notes are the Labirynth backstory (a dungeon you have to complete without dying to earn points and make a "Specialization" for you character) and Daresso's story with the levels in the Colosseum. Also Kitava's story in the last act as you learn it's origin is good. But my favorite is the Labyrinth backstory of why it was created and all the rest that I won't spoil here.

"Any final advice fellow old-and-not-very-social-player?"

• The game economy is based on trading items. No gold. So for this at least, I do recommend a quick check of the wiki for the different "horadric cube formulas" so you know what to put in the merchant window to obtain certain currencies.
  
• If you decide you want to trade the system isn't very intuitive. I once put some items in a premium tab with a fixed price to see how the trading worked. Some months later I logged in PoE's webpage to see I received a PM like two months back. Sorry random stranger!
  
• If you end up hooked by the endgame despite it's problems. For the love of god search an "item filter" you'll thank me later.

"You wrote a lot"

I know. Sorry. If you read up to here I hope this helped you to have a better understanding of PoE and what to expect at the different levels of the game.