Path of Exile

 PC
User Score
7.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 2202 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,641 out of 2202
  2. Mixed: 258 out of 2202
  3. Negative: 303 out of 2202

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  1. Serial
    Oct 29, 2014
    0
    There are too many things that ruin the game:

    1.Trading: No trading system, items are offered via trade chat (about 100 per minute). Impossible to compare offers for a single item you are looking for. Furthermore, about 95% of these items are pure junk and overpriced. 2. Leveling: Leveling up a character becomes boring if you have to repeat the same areas 3 times before you    There are too many things that ruin the game:

    1.Trading:

    No trading system, items are offered via trade chat (about 100 per minute). Impossible to compare offers for a single item you are looking for. Furthermore, about 95% of these items are pure junk and overpriced.

    2. Leveling:

    Leveling up a character becomes boring if you have to repeat the same areas 3 times before you attempt what they call "end-game content".

    3. End game and rewards:

    That is running maps (with map levels from 66 up to 79) with a Bossmonster at the end of the map.That looks fine because we all know that Bossmonsters hold special rewards like cool Uniques or currency or even more maps. In fact, they drop crap. I ran lvl 77-78 maps with a guildmate who had an 400% increased chance to get rarer items for almost a week and got nothing valuable.

    4. Partying:

    see performance and technical issues

    5. Performance and technical issues:

    There are too many things ruining gameplay and have not been adressed as of now, one of the worst is desync. Loosing hours of playtime you have spend because your character dies and suffers a 10% XP penalty becaus the servers loose the exact position of your character and sends you back to a place where you had been a few seconds before isn't really fun. The official game forum is full of players complaining exactly this. And now, something funny: GGG declares this as a feature to prevent cheating.

    Partying sounds like fun, if you like dia-shows.Too many skills and character builds cause even high-end computers to drop down to a few frames when playing in a group.
    The last mini expansion "The Forsaken Masters" made it even worse.With this expansion players can have their own personal hideout, a place to rest or sort things in your stash, nothing special because this hideout is only a small tileset with a few objects like bricks or a wall or a few trees. Guess what happens to your framerate when entering your or other players hideout? But hey........you can
    decorate your personal hideout with hundreds of objects (of course you can buy them from GGG, but there are also free ones)....guess again what happens to your framerate and loading time ?
    I forgot weather effects. Yes, weather effects have been implemented to more and more areas over the last months although many players complain about framedrops in these areas.Instead of adding a chance to turn weather effects off via the options menue, they add even more.
    Opening the box....surprise, surprise......whats in the box? While running around you may find kind of a chest box, called strongbox.Introduced in the "Ambush league" a few months ago, you'll get ambushed by monsters when opening these boxes.Sounds funny, but.............many computers freeze for 1-2 secs while the game is loading the monsters. Click the Resurrect button and take the 10% XP penalty.

    All in all this game is an ambitious project, but GGG failed in too many aspects.    … Expand
  2. dwupac
    Oct 5, 2013
    10
    POE is the deepest aRPG slasher ever made. It uses some tested ideas while introducing highly innovative systems and end-game mechanics. To put it straight
    Path of Exile is AAA+ game FREE of charge. No pay to win. Grind to win!
    The game is quite polished already future announcements make you connected to Wreaclast even more. Devs give their best, the rapport is great and from what i've    POE is the deepest aRPG slasher ever made. It uses some tested ideas while introducing highly innovative systems and end-game mechanics. To put it straight
    Path of Exile is AAA+ game FREE of charge. No pay to win. Grind to win!

    The game is quite polished already future announcements make you connected to Wreaclast even more. Devs give their best, the rapport is great and from what i've seen in the past year the were 25+ patches, constant tweaking with the mechanics, skill tree* and skills.
    Dedication is the way Grinding Gear works. They way they introduce changes clearly shows how they care.
    *The sheer size of the skill tree is a guarantee jaw drop if seen for the first time    … Expand
  3. Airek
    Oct 28, 2013
    4
    Bland graphics, bad animations, lack of variety in mobs, laughable tryhardy currency system, and the over reliance on spamming a single ability.

    The skill system, while at first glance seems interesting, ends up being a mess with a bunch of support gems making a single skill more powerful, which allows (promotes) you to spam a single ability even more than the average ARPG.
  4. MrZero
    Nov 1, 2013
    4
    To begin with, props to the developers. They've created a free game that truly tries to keep it grounded so players have to actually play the game to progress, instead of just buy their way through, a la gear from an auction house, RL player, ect.. This product appears to be a true labor of love, and the title screen even touts "After 7 years of development, we are proud to present toTo begin with, props to the developers. They've created a free game that truly tries to keep it grounded so players have to actually play the game to progress, instead of just buy their way through, a la gear from an auction house, RL player, ect.. This product appears to be a true labor of love, and the title screen even touts "After 7 years of development, we are proud to present to you POE!!"

    And that might be where the problem lies: The game feels extremely dated, extremely short, and fails extremely bad in most areas.

    The graphics are very meh, the story is forgettable music is just-okay, and with the way the party system is setup, you can literally win this game within ohhhhh, 4-10 hours? True story.

    The game has different difficulty levels, but who cares? It boils down to monsters hitting harder, not tactics. All you do in this game is mash buttons. There's so many animations and crap flying across the screen, you spend the entire game looking at your health/spirit level waiting to pop a potion, all while just holding down the auto-attack. I literally held "Q" and pressed numbers 1-5 for my potions.

    As far is loot is concerned, this game should be renamed Path of the Ninja Looter, because it becomes a crazy game of Hungry, Hungry Hippo when a rare item (and by god, they are rare) finally drops. You'll then sell that POS item to a NPC vendor who will give you scraps for it (literally) and then you put about 1000 of those scraps together to make some orbs, and then you spam-trade those orbs for other orbs (amassing about 1000 of those, too) and then spam-trade those orbs for other orbs, spam-trade more for another type of orb and when all is said and done you'll come out of it with LITERALLY 1 orb.

    You'll then take that orb and find a spam-trader, whom you will then trade you a sword that he found for you're 1 orb. Congrats after all of that running back and forth to NPC and real-life spam traders, you now have a sword that does 3% more damage, with a chance to evade. If this sounds overly-complicated and un-rewarding to you, let me assure you, it is.

    Now, I won the game at level 38; however, I see people leveling to 70+, grinding away to get the best gear, for a game, they've already beaten ....

    That's is. Let me repeat. Beat the game in level 30's but grind away and spam-trade for gear up to level 70+. Oh, and you cant even inspect another players gear, so it is truly self-gratification unless you wanna be that jackass spam-linking his gear.    … Expand
  5. Scoobydooby
    Jan 7, 2014
    4
    For starters, I don't understand how so many of these reviews are 10.. 10 means a perfect or epic beyond epic game.. either you people work for GGG or you are willfully ignorant to the many flaws this game has.. why is a mystery to me, but this game is nowhere near a 10. To say this game is the deepest or best RPG ever made is laughable.
    Clearly these people have not actually played this    For starters, I don't understand how so many of these reviews are 10.. 10 means a perfect or epic beyond epic game.. either you people work for GGG or you are willfully ignorant to the many flaws this game has.. why is a mystery to me, but this game is nowhere near a 10. To say this game is the deepest or best RPG ever made is laughable.
    Clearly these people have not actually played this game for any substantial amount of time, otherwise they would not be giving it a 10 or even an 8.
    Tough to take this site seriously at all with such ridiculous ratings..

    Now to the game.

    I started playing POE in Open Beta and have leveled a dozen or more characters in that time, several hardcore, several in Onslaught/Domination. All my characters have leveled to between 40-70
    In that time I have learned A LOT about this game and all of its systems and nuances, as well as the gear, trading rates, orb rates, etc.

    What people need to understand is that this game is decent, but certainly not great. On the surface, its easy to start playing and be enamored with POE. It isn't until you delve more deeply into the game that you see the huge fissures which unfortunately show the game's true colors. In fact for almost every good thing in the game, it has a flipside that is equally, if not more so, negative. There is nothing in the game that is outright amazing, so again, to give it a ten is a silly joke.

    I will break down my post into sections.

    The Skill System: Overall the vast variety of skills provides a user with options of how to build their character. Support gems further alter the usability of these skills and provide a good amount of variety and customization. What sucks however about these skill gems is that many of these are either underpowered or downright useless. Some are not strong enough on their own until paired with support gems to buff them, and some are just pointless entirely.

    Loot: When you find something in this game, there is a feeling of excitement, like any RPG. The problem is that stuff DOES NOT DROP. Take it from me who's put in around 1k+ hours. If I could sum up the game in one word, especially when considering loot, it would be "UNREWARDING". You will feel like you play for lifetimes only to find trash that is worthless and will net you a couple alts at the vendor. Good luck finding any gear that is a direct upgrade for the character you are leveling. By all accounts, unless you get insanely lucky, that AINT gonna happen. You will need to trade for anything you really need in this game, whether it be gems, orbs, or gear.. which leads me to..

    Trading: To get anywhere in this game, you need to trade. That is all there is to it. If you prefer to play self-found, run away from this game now.. I've just saved you a lot of time and heartache. Trading is a pain because not only do people overvalue every item they wish to sell, many people do not even set a fixed price on items and instead ask for "offers". If you offer less than what they wish to sell for, its not uncommon for them to set you on "ignore" or reply with vile speak. It takes forever to sell anything and the trade chat is nothing but a wall of spam on every channel.

    Crafting: There really isn't any crafting in this game, which to me is a humongous let down. You have all these different base items, with all these different rolls and affixes, and yet to try to craft you need an absurd amount of orbs to do so with any effect. Orb drop rates are pathetic (after leveling now 6 characters in Domination, I have a total of 7 found Chaos Orbs, 1 divine, 3 Gemcutter Prism, and around 10 Chisels) so once again, you need to trade to get orbs. Orbs are more used for currency than for crafting in almost every aspect of the game. The worst part though, is that there is no progression.. you can use orbs on an item, and there is a small chance it will improve, but a better chance it will regress in quality.

    Content: The maps are pretty boring after a while. Nobody give a toss about the story, because its unmemorable, and generally its a slow grind with numerous gear checks instead of any real innovative monster skills or mechanics. Its just Up the damage and resistances and implement bosses with single shot capabilities. Graphically, the game is good but nothing amazing.

    What makes me laugh the most though are all these reviews saying that this game isn't pay to win. Are you all unaware of the rampant botting and selling of Orbs and other items for real money? There are a slew of RMT sites where you can buy gear for this game and even some high end players have been known to partake. Anyone who thinks it isn't pay to win is kidding themselves or just ignorant.

    Also, does a game being free mean its automatically a 10? Apparently that is this game's best quality.. that its free to play. Well, that's not saying much then is it?

    Overall, if you have no life and are masochistic, this is the game for you. Otherwise, look elsewhere for an RPG    … Expand
  6. JayLazad
    Jan 28, 2014
    0
    Just starting playing this hyped game called Path of Exile. I noticed that you cannot trade until level 25. When I got to level 25, I started to trade some stuff in one of the chat rooms. What happened there was a shame. I got people reporting me and I got some staff harassing me about trading. I just started and was having the greatest fun of my life! Unfortunately, the community and theJust starting playing this hyped game called Path of Exile. I noticed that you cannot trade until level 25. When I got to level 25, I started to trade some stuff in one of the chat rooms. What happened there was a shame. I got people reporting me and I got some staff harassing me about trading. I just started and was having the greatest fun of my life! Unfortunately, the community and the staff are the worst of all. Because of this, I give this game a rating of 0 out of 10. Of all the games I played that were free to play, this is the first time my account got muted for something that the game actually allows you to do. Why would you enable a feature that you want players not to do? The worst company and worst staff. If you want a good game, just go buy the Diablo expansion coming out in March and spam and trade all you want in the chat rooms. This company and the staff is a shame. Also, the game is somewhat outdated in relations to recent games. If the company and their staff are going to continue to be as*holes, I am going to refer my friends out of this game and tell other people not to play this game.… Expand
  7. jlowe48
    Dec 29, 2013
    1
    POE goes sour, most players quit out of frustration.

    Eventually desync bugs or fruitless grinding will be what drive most players to quit this game. Great games you look back at with fondness after you are done with them. POE you look at with fondness when you start playing, and 10-100 play hours later you are frustrated and wish hadn't given them any money. New players, look over    POE goes sour, most players quit out of frustration.

    Eventually desync bugs or fruitless grinding will be what drive most players to quit this game. Great games you look back at with fondness after you are done with them. POE you look at with fondness when you start playing, and 10-100 play hours later you are frustrated and wish hadn't given them any money.

    New players, look over the official game forums to see what you are getting into. Be sure to look in the feedback forum where the moderators move anything negative. In particular look at the desync and drop rate related threads. Item drops and trading are balanced towords no-real-life players, and the dev team refuses to acknowledge that the desync issues need to (or can be) be fixed.    … Expand
  8. Goatsecks
    Dec 21, 2013
    2
    This game doesn't deserve the 8.8 user score and here's why.

    The Good: -The game is free and although there are micro-transactions, they are just for cosmetics. -You are able to customize skills and your own passive skill tree which ever way you want. -Trading system revolves around dropable orbs which you can use to improve gear instead of a single base currency. -Lack of bots.    This game doesn't deserve the 8.8 user score and here's why.

    The Good:

    -The game is free and although there are micro-transactions, they are just for cosmetics.
    -You are able to customize skills and your own passive skill tree which ever way you want.
    -Trading system revolves around dropable orbs which you can use to improve gear instead of a single base currency.
    -Lack of bots.
    -Party system is simple and anyone can join any group at any time.
    -Regular updates.

    The Bad:

    -Massive lag and desync issues.
    -It's a terrible wannabe Diablo 2 clone where there is no auction house, and massive trade spam that lags you even more. The developers are obviously stuck in the past, and if most people wanted to play Diablo 2 they would do that instead because it's a much better game. It's like a bunch of old guys that say 60s cars are much better than cars today (they're not).
    -By level 50, it's just a GRINDFEST like any typical mmo.
    -The passive skill tree is big, but the +10 to whatever doesn't do much for your character. Furthermore, if you lead yourself into a bad tree, you can't reset your passives and undo skills unless you (grind) orb of regrets. This becomes a problem when you reach merciless, and realize your build is awful and really gear dependent. Then you have to spend another 20 hours finding another build that works.
    -By completing Normal difficulty in 5-10 hours, you've already won the game. Past that it's just collecting items with different colored names to pvp with people that will always have better gear than you.
    -Hold the Q button and win. No tactics required.    … Expand
  9. Yeoman
    May 19, 2014
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Don't fall for this game's tricks! When you first start playing, it seems awesome because you're fighting skeletons on a scary beach. The monsters are something you can relate to, and the environment is well-themed. Lightning, dark caves, skeletons, and ghosts await you at every turn. But by Act 3 that experience dissipates into a mockery of what the game built its roots on.

    You end up fighting fire beetles. Yes, tons and tons of beetles, and the Act 2 end boss amounts to a giant can-opener or something ridiculous. Then instead of cool, classic monsters, you'll be fighting ribbons. Yes, I said ribbons. And these weird, ridiculous monsters that don't use their claws on you, but try to leg-sweep you for reasons unknown, like some sort of mentally challenged ninja.

    Also, the maps in Act 3 become horrifically boring and way over-sized, so you'll have to spend hours upon hours just finding way-points unless you don't want to save your progress. I played with a friend of mine and we raved about how great the game was at first, but Act 3 destroyed the entire experience and we quit playing it. It was a depressing letdown and I felt like crying.    … Expand
  10. MarcusJoz
    Jan 16, 2014
    0
    Everyone, my name is Marcus. I played this game called Path of Exiles one day and it seems really fun with complex mechanics. The downside is that it does not seem to be a high-end game. The other downside is that the players seem to complain about not being able to freely trade in chat rooms. I agree completely with this. I blame the support team of moderators at the company calledEveryone, my name is Marcus. I played this game called Path of Exiles one day and it seems really fun with complex mechanics. The downside is that it does not seem to be a high-end game. The other downside is that the players seem to complain about not being able to freely trade in chat rooms. I agree completely with this. I blame the support team of moderators at the company called Grinding Gear Games. I think their supervisor is this guy called Michael. His group are the worst of the worst when it comes to account disables. I know many people who were muted and even locked out of their account for simple chat issues. This sort of a lack of freedom and abusive behavior at the company is what caused me to rate this game at the lowest. I know other companies do not really care about what you do as long as you buy their game. But for Path of Exile, its different. They offer a free to play method and also a pay to play method. I know many players who have been victims of these moderators and are waiting for the Diablo expansion for 2014. I recommend you not support them if their support staff continues to be anal about chat room posts and what not. They also try to cover up the negative truth. That is why I recommend the upcoming Diablo expansion which comes out this year and not Path of Exiles. Fair gaming experience, but bad company and bad support team.… Expand
  11. relaxingtomato
    Oct 25, 2013
    3
    Path of Exile is a great complex game...on the surface.

    Sure theres thousands of skill gem, support gem and passive node combinations, but comparing to its obvious competitor Diablo 3, you realise it actually offers less true character customisation. All Path of Exile offers is tons of ways to SCREW UP your character. I'm a gold closed beta supporter, and I can tell you there are    Path of Exile is a great complex game...on the surface.

    Sure theres thousands of skill gem, support gem and passive node combinations, but comparing to its obvious competitor Diablo 3, you realise it actually offers less true character customisation.

    All Path of Exile offers is tons of ways to SCREW UP your character.

    I'm a gold closed beta supporter, and I can tell you there are less viable endgame builds in PoE than Diablo 3. The devs haven taken steps like increasing aura costs to increase build diversity, but judging from the highly negative community response, its unlikely PoE will ever live up to its promises

    I'll be back in a few years. Until then, enjoy 1 or 2 builds dominating the ladder, before GGG nerfs them and another 1 or 2 take their place.    … Expand
  12. BLADELING
    Feb 10, 2014
    0
    Take a game good for casual gamers, add desync problems and one of the most immature community... Congratulations! You got Path of Exile!

    The only good thing - to imitate - is the micro-transactions system. No P2W here.
  13. SuniaPoz
    Feb 1, 2014
    1
    A 1 out of 10 for me! Ok. I do not like the support moderators in the game. I do not like the players who constantly report you for doing nothing. I do not like the lack of freedom. I do not like how there is not sort of formal trade system because chat trading gets tiresome.

    I do like this game being pretty different from some of the games being released today. Seems I have more    A 1 out of 10 for me! Ok. I do not like the support moderators in the game. I do not like the players who constantly report you for doing nothing. I do not like the lack of freedom. I do not like how there is not sort of formal trade system because chat trading gets tiresome.

    I do like this game being pretty different from some of the games being released today. Seems I have more negative thoughts than positives. That's it, so bye!    … Expand
  14. Jingo
    Nov 19, 2013
    2
    Got to admit, I only played it for an hour so don't mistake this for a deep review. Took about an hour of gameplay for me to delete it off the hard drive. It's basically an online version of the tired old genre that started with games like Titan Quest. Click, click click on far too many identical enemies and watch their health bars go down. Then loot and repeat.
    If that's fun for you,    Got to admit, I only played it for an hour so don't mistake this for a deep review. Took about an hour of gameplay for me to delete it off the hard drive. It's basically an online version of the tired old genre that started with games like Titan Quest. Click, click click on far too many identical enemies and watch their health bars go down. Then loot and repeat.
    If that's fun for you, then be happy. The game is free.    … Expand
  15. AeonForm
    Apr 22, 2014
    2
    This is a diablo-like, but this is not definitely not Diablo, the combat are so slowww, i feel like hitting a piece of butter with a plastic fork. the graphics are ugly...some people will say "it's dark, not like diablo", well it's not dark for me, it's ugly, everything is static, nothing lives in this game.
  16. FuzzyPuppy
    Aug 25, 2014
    1
    I tried to like it, I really did. But; the game play is clumsy, the graphics are painful, I do not enjoy spamming 1 spell over and over, most of the skill tree is useless, the lag/desync is outrageous... I am all about liking the concept, but this was poorly done.

    I realize that there is a fan base that holds this game as the true sequel to Diablo 2. I whole heartedly disagree. I think    I tried to like it, I really did. But; the game play is clumsy, the graphics are painful, I do not enjoy spamming 1 spell over and over, most of the skill tree is useless, the lag/desync is outrageous... I am all about liking the concept, but this was poorly done.

    I realize that there is a fan base that holds this game as the true sequel to Diablo 2. I whole heartedly disagree. I think Diablo 2 is vastly superior in every way except graphics.

    I wish I could actually find another Diablo 2. Diablo 3, while fun- falls short of the mark. It's more of an action game. And PoE was just a painful experience. Maybe call it PoS?    … Expand
  17. METAKRITIK
    Feb 3, 2014
    0
    Left this game long ago when I got muted for selling in global chat. I do not know what the big deal is. Everyone there is like a report lover. I understand that they are trying to crack down on botters, but seriously. The community is like a bunch of immature pool turds that do not want to mind their own fu**ing business. I blame all the moderators who are there for this to happen. I knowLeft this game long ago when I got muted for selling in global chat. I do not know what the big deal is. Everyone there is like a report lover. I understand that they are trying to crack down on botters, but seriously. The community is like a bunch of immature pool turds that do not want to mind their own fu**ing business. I blame all the moderators who are there for this to happen. I know many people who feel the same way. I give 0 to this game because they have lousy moderators. My reason is that if I cannot play, then I cannot enjoy the game. I would say the game has potential for a higher score from me only if they allow me to trade freely, fix the chat system, or add a trade platform for easier trades. The game moderators should go to hell.… Expand
  18. wemelchor1
    Feb 11, 2014
    0
    this game is overhyped garbage by far. It does alot right, but it does alot oh so wrong. The first complaint I have is the fact that this game forces the character to be a certain sex or character for each class they want to play. the game is a repetitive grindfest from the minute you end up on shore. I fealt like after a few "reskinned" areas, painstakingly messing around with my pretendthis game is overhyped garbage by far. It does alot right, but it does alot oh so wrong. The first complaint I have is the fact that this game forces the character to be a certain sex or character for each class they want to play. the game is a repetitive grindfest from the minute you end up on shore. I fealt like after a few "reskinned" areas, painstakingly messing around with my pretend "unique" character, I fealt like I had already seen the game. the skill tree at face value looks like a innovative potential but a few ten levels and you notice no matter where you build you are going to end up with the same build regardless. there is no freedom in the skill tree. the trade system is piss poor, gold currency was made for a reason. the team finding system is piss poor. nobody answers chat, it is such a hassle to find the correct team. in a game that relies on heavy teamwork this game fails at creating teams. I spent alot of time being bored out of my mind than advancing in the game. what the game does right is blighted out but I will list it anyways. this game does materia and it does it well. even though the combat system is stale and borderline BORING MASH FEST, I find some of the magic fresh towards this stale series. the fact that it is free tells how bad it is, if I had to pay for this game I would be pissed.… Expand
  19. foxchicken
    Apr 18, 2014
    3
    Game is fun for a couple of weeks, but like a lot of these games suffers from bad loot, incoherent nerfs, meaningless stats, bad scaling, useless dodge/defense mechanics and extremely limited game-play. There is no trading system. Pretty clear the developer is lost with this one.
  20. krammerlock
    Jan 31, 2014
    1
    This game is the very definition of such. First it is a rip off of Diablo and has all of the faults of that game plus the faults of being an on-line game. The worst feature is that the atmosphere is mono-chromatic, depressing and just plain boring. Frankly after killing undead for hours I found myself identifying with them. The next worst feature is that you play through an area, but haveThis game is the very definition of such. First it is a rip off of Diablo and has all of the faults of that game plus the faults of being an on-line game. The worst feature is that the atmosphere is mono-chromatic, depressing and just plain boring. Frankly after killing undead for hours I found myself identifying with them. The next worst feature is that you play through an area, but have to leave and when you come back you are at home base. You have to do the same old boring stuff all over again. Yes it has a huge amount of upgrades and customization but you have to be willing to pay the price of being bored to tears to get to a point where others say the game becomes interesting. Frankly there are games out there that are loads more fun from the beginning.… Expand
  21. zerebruin
    Dec 28, 2013
    2
    A really bad Diablo II clone =

    Here's the good news: interface and short cuts are almost exactly the same as Diablo II. Sadly, they've been redesigned very badly. Take the overlay-map as an example: it's next to useless because there no landmarks are visible for the player to orient himself. The game's graphics are worse than those of the 13 year old Diablo II. Of course the     A really bad Diablo II clone =

    Here's the good news: interface and short cuts are almost exactly the same as Diablo II.
    Sadly, they've been redesigned very badly. Take the overlay-map as an example: it's next to useless because there no landmarks are visible for the player to orient himself.

    The game's graphics are worse than those of the 13 year old Diablo II. Of course the resolution is a lot better, but PoE lacks details and most of all lighting. The character selection menu is so bad, I almost closed the game again instantly. The characters are hidden, and yes, that IS bad design, even if they're supposed to be 'in the shadows' (there are no shadows, everything is grey). Showing off the characters is the point of a character selection, so why not use some contrast and light?

    Character and monster design seems equally uninspired, although that may change in higher levels (I only played two characters to level 8 and 10 respectively).

    The gameplay is boring to say the least. A very simple hack'n'slay but even that isn't really fun. Diablo 3 isn't much more than a hack and slay after playing the story through but at least it feels perfect and looks stunning.

    I've not seen any story to speak of, the characters are almost as bleak as the levels are boring. The latter are also not very well designed, making them more of a maze. They're also not dynamically created (probably because that would be difficult for an MMO).

    The skill system looks amazing at first glance with an incredibly complex skill tree dazzling the player. Mostly that is because all character classes are shown at once, though, making the whole thing quite confusing at the beginning. This super complex skill system stands in stark contrast to the lack of character customization. There are no stat points for strength, dexterity or intelligence that would make a truly complex character system.

    At least there's one interesting thing to note: Gems can be levelled and changed from weapons and armour without any cost. This allows for a lot of experimentation in character creation. Then again, most players will probably just not think about their characters as much if they know they can change weapons and armor at any time without penalty.

    Overall the game is quite well characterised by the Grinding Gear Games logo: ugly, rusted cogs that do not work smoothly, if they work at all.
    The only reason this game gets any good reviews must be that a lot of young players never played Diablo II.    … Expand
  22. Curtis50cent
    Feb 10, 2014
    1
    Pros : Diablo Like

    Cons: Heavy Grinding without real reward. Trading is necessary All the time Desync problems and the devs dont give a **** about it. Not newbie friendly Skills are copy paste nothing new. Worst currency system ive seen so far. 6 ppl party almost unplayable coz of many laggy builds. Feels like a single player game but u will lagg / desync Poor game optimization    Pros : Diablo Like

    Cons: Heavy Grinding without real reward.
    Trading is necessary
    All the time Desync problems and the devs dont give a **** about it.
    Not newbie friendly
    Skills are copy paste nothing new.
    Worst currency system ive seen so far.
    6 ppl party almost unplayable coz of many laggy builds.
    Feels like a single player game but u will lagg / desync
    Poor game optimization
    Devs dont really pay attention to the suggestions / feedbacks (only if its positive)
    After lvl 80 it takes ages for a small upgrade in gear.
    Many build are unplayable on Hardcore coz of desync.
    Events are for NOLIFERS

    I guess thats all , it worth a try but after few days / weeks it gets booring as Torchlight2.    … Expand
  23. rAMZA
    Sep 29, 2014
    0
    looks realy old, and should have offline mode, skilltree is little to big, they could have moved str int dex somevhere else, i would recomend titan quest, dablo 3, grim dawn and torchlight
  24. SethEvandor
    Jul 30, 2015
    0
    This game still favours melee chars. Spell crit is op, especially when the spells are invisible... Sorry but after connection problems, getting great drops for a char 20 lvls below me, I'm tired of this **** Pulled about 20 maps, rek most and the game is pretty much now about whether you get instagibbed rather than be able to kill stuff, not fun at all.
  25. GGG_LOSERS
    Feb 2, 2014
    2
    One of the company's moderators are **** I was trying to trade my rares in the chat rooms and was muted. I think the moderators need to go out and get a life. Maybe that moderator is a wannabe police geek. It makes me laugh that games are nowhere near competitive sports, and you get penalized from gamer nerds. These moderator nerds and geeks need to get out from behind their screens soOne of the company's moderators are **** I was trying to trade my rares in the chat rooms and was muted. I think the moderators need to go out and get a life. Maybe that moderator is a wannabe police geek. It makes me laugh that games are nowhere near competitive sports, and you get penalized from gamer nerds. These moderator nerds and geeks need to get out from behind their screens so that real men can confront them. Probably they would get pounced out and hide like cowards. If the moderators are reading this, they should really back off of players who are trying to just play and chat game related stuff. These moderators are losers for sure. I give this game 2 points only because I play this free game called Dota 2. I can talk smack all I want and I do not even get penalized. Haha.… Expand
  26. alientude
    Nov 18, 2013
    3
    The game is fun and, for the most part, well designed. But for a game that was in a closed beta for years and open beta for half a year, it's a very poorly optimized game. Creatures teleport around due to lag, as does the main character.

    The worst, however, is the constant BSODs that occur for just about anybody using a Creative sound card. This has been going on for years, and the only    The game is fun and, for the most part, well designed. But for a game that was in a closed beta for years and open beta for half a year, it's a very poorly optimized game. Creatures teleport around due to lag, as does the main character.

    The worst, however, is the constant BSODs that occur for just about anybody using a Creative sound card. This has been going on for years, and the only solution given is a command line switch to bypass using hardware audio at all. The good news? The "solution" kind of works. The bad news? Yeah, it doesn't really work while the BSODs are lessened, they still happen. As far as I can tell, the official response to this is to use a command line switch to disable sound entirely. That's just poor programming and poor customer service. Yeah, it's free, but that doesn't excuse shoddy code.    … Expand
  27. Vitaly
    Oct 24, 2013
    3
    One or two runs through this game can be fun, but not more than that. End game (maps system) is based on pure and very unfair gambling and design to keep you as long as possible within the game.

    Maps have levels from 66 78. Anything worth farming and crafting (crafting is based on gamble too) starting from lvl 71 maps which will be unreachable to most of players since maps drop rate    One or two runs through this game can be fun, but not more than that. End game (maps system) is based on pure and very unfair gambling and design to keep you as long as possible within the game.

    Maps have levels from 66 78. Anything worth farming and crafting (crafting is based on gamble too) starting from lvl 71 maps which will be unreachable to most of players since maps drop rate will decrease dramatically (drop rates lowered in background without any note to player) with each subsequent level of maps and will form a very high wall at level 71 maps. To counter that you will need insane amount of currency which can be acquired only through farming or trading. Since most items worth selling or using hidden behind lvl71 maps you will find yourself in process of very unrewarding farming.

    Stash space is limited. If you will run this game more than once or will want to reach end game you will need more. This is where free to play model comes in. Set of tabs for your stash will worth you 15$ (6 simple tabs) or 20$ (6 premiums). And you will buy them, because early game is so fun... But when you will reach end game, this will change into frustration of how it was designed (to keep you as long as it possible in game in hope you will buy some cosmetics effects or will run out of stash space again).

    After release they introduced Guilds which can help solve main problem of this game it was designed for party not for solo players. Solo players will die a lot and in most cases you won't be able to find out why by yourself (game is based on many things most of which is not self explanatory). But, again, to get from guilds most you will have to pay with real money again.

    The currency system is a pure gambling. Instead of gold this game have usable orbs which can change properties of items and maps in many ways. But they based on chance so heavily that you can trash all of your hard-earned currency in minutes and will not get anything in return. Go back to farming to repeat this process later.

    Dsync is another huge problem. You will die a lot because of dsync. Period.

    Game has "old school" (read outdated) leveling system. You will need to repeat process of leveling for every build you want to make. And since you will fail your fist build for sure, you will have to repeat this process over and over again while you learn this game. Follow the tip: go to the forum, find yourself a build and just follow. This will help to avoid much of frustration when things will not work as you was expecting.

    And some more if you got hacked, company will not restore your stolen items or deleted characters.    … Expand
  28. ratapwnz
    Mar 9, 2014
    4
    This game is boring. No, i mean REALLY BORING. The only reason people play it, is to say "im not diablo3 fanboy, look i play better game". Ah and its free, schoolboys like to grind not work to buy game.
    But meanwhile there is no game at all. Only excel skill planing. Gameplay is boring rightclick like 1000 times before.
    The plot sometimes interesting, but can you write down any NPC name    This game is boring. No, i mean REALLY BORING. The only reason people play it, is to say "im not diablo3 fanboy, look i play better game". Ah and its free, schoolboys like to grind not work to buy game.
    But meanwhile there is no game at all. Only excel skill planing. Gameplay is boring rightclick like 1000 times before.
    The plot sometimes interesting, but can you write down any NPC name after you finish it? Nope.

    How fanboy see it: thousand builds
    In real world: 3.5 actual builds, other is weak and unplayable / playable only with gear grinded 500 hours.

    How fanboy see it: SOOOO MUCH PASIVESS!!!!
    In real world: 99% of nodes are same as "put 5 points in str/agi/int after lvlup".

    How fanboy see it: free game, no pay to win, no money auction
    In real world: bots in every league, black market = same money auction but some people dont know / dont wanna use it

    etc. etc. etc.

    Overrated game. 4.    … Expand
  29. FrankLiu
    Jan 19, 2014
    1
    I want to tell everyone how disappointed I am with the moderators of this game. The moderators are scum because they mute you for trading global chat. I played so many free to play games and bought so many pc games that I never been muted for something so absurd like what the moderators do in this game. That is the downside to this company. They cannot even provide a fix to this and whatI want to tell everyone how disappointed I am with the moderators of this game. The moderators are scum because they mute you for trading global chat. I played so many free to play games and bought so many pc games that I never been muted for something so absurd like what the moderators do in this game. That is the downside to this company. They cannot even provide a fix to this and what they do is they mute player accounts. It is not even funny because when you are muted, you basically cannot enjoy the multiplayer experience. Its like playing offline mode, but they make the game an online game. This game is far from being the best and with such a scum moderator team, I am giving this a 1 out of 10. The one point is for a fun run through with the game. Other than that, bad moderators, and that means bad company. Go play Grim Dawn everyone! Its much better.… Expand
  30. Synol
    Nov 18, 2013
    1
    If this game was offline, or had decent servers/code it would be a great game.

    However it has none of those things. De-sync is out of control, a quick google search will show you this has been a problem since forever and the devs have no idea how to fix it or just do not care. Their solution thus far was to put in a command /oos to sync you back to where the server thinks you are. One    If this game was offline, or had decent servers/code it would be a great game.

    However it has none of those things. De-sync is out of control, a quick google search will show you this has been a problem since forever and the devs have no idea how to fix it or just do not care. Their solution thus far was to put in a command /oos to sync you back to where the server thinks you are. One has to wonder why they don't simply bind this functionality into skills if they already have it. So that when you use a skill it checks to make sure you are where the server thinks you are.

    Apart from the apparent lack of skill on the devs behalf the in-game staff are much worse. If you disagree with their sexual preferences (gay btw) and you state that in any capacity you will be muted for Hate Speech. Want to say that being straight is normal (even though it is and this is simply a fact) Muted. The irony being that imposing their own views on others and muting anyone that disagrees is actually Hate Speech against straight people. Want to point out that if humans were all gay we would have gone extinct a long time ago? Hate Speech. Muted.

    There are many other things wrong with the game, like the map being horrendously drawn and looks like absolute garbage, but it would take far too long to list them all here. Go to their forums and read some of the threads there before the mods lock and delete them for being honest.

    If you want to play a good ARPG just go play Diablo 2 or wait for the Diablo 3 expansion. This game is filled with bigots and their staffs entire job is to hide negative feedback and not actually improve the game. Everything that is fun in this game is a direct copy of Diablo 2 anyway but with less depth. 7 years to make an average game that most people didn't even play past the first week? What an absolute disgrace.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

20
#20 Best PC Game of 2013
18
#18 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
14
#14 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
86

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 27
  3. Negative: 0 out of 27
  1. RPGamer
    May 9, 2014
    100
    Grinding Gear Games has created something special here, and given it gratis to the world.
    Read full review
  2. Pelit (Finland)
    Mar 11, 2014
    88
    Hack & slash games are addictive because they follow a simple formula: kill, kill and kill some more. Path of Exile is no different in this regard. During your quest in the perilous continent of Wraeclast you need to slay thousands and thousands of monsters but it never gets boring because there are a plenty of fresh ideas like the very vast skill system and barter-based economy that differentiate it from other similar games. But it's not a perfect game. The story is weak and the difficulty level is too low in the beginning. [Dec 2013]
  3. PC Gamer
    Jan 13, 2014
    84
    An exceptionally generous free-to-play action-rPG. What it lacks in punch it makes up for in depth and value for money.
    Read full review
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