I play POE 2 with my son. Though computer games get a bad rap, I find it’s a great way to spend time with him.

Zach is in his 30s and I am so old my number is unlisted. The graphics and gameplay remind me of when I was in my 30s and he was just a teen and we played Diablo 2.

Together Zach and I run through the forest, explore castles, fight side-by-side against spiders, wolves and witches. We plan, plot, and share whatever loot we find, helping each other, gearing up to take on bosses like the Executioner, Putrid Wolf, or the Viper.

Zach is 10x better at the game than I will ever be. The advantages of youth. My clicking finger ain’t what it used to be, neither is my brain. They just don’t move as fast as my son’s. I admire his ability to multi-task far better than I can.

My monk Euryanax is not as quick as his sorceress Social Security. She sprints ahead of me through the Lost City of Keth, but when we’re battling the Titan, Euryanax is on the front line ringing his bell, while Social Security stands behind me throwing her sparks.

Zach and I play hardcore. When you die, you whine, you curse. I spent a week leveling my poison arrow ranger Ariatozah, only for the boss in the Azog Bog to lay her into a muddy grave. My warrior, Idanthyrus, got mauled by the Wolf at the end of Act One. Our witches Epinine and Terminate#5 got simultaneously one-shotted by the Titan.

When I lose an HC character I’m depressed for ten minutes, then create a new one. Where Zach has gotten his monk Splutter to level 75, my highest HC character, a lightning arrow ranger named Maydes made it to 55 only to die at the hands of the Crowbell in Cruel. Have taken a softcore character into maps, but admittedly it’s not as much fun.

Facing Jamanra at the end of Act Two or Doryani at the end of Act Three in hardcore is as thrilling as a roller coaster ride. You’re running, rolling, leaping, shooting arrows, tossing javelins, throwing sparks, swinging two-handed maces. At the end of a good fight, Zach and I can’t help but cheer. My heart is racing. That’s hardcore.

With POE comes a thriving digital community. Streamers like Ziz, Raxx and Darth MT provide an important part of the POE 2 experience. We’ve both gleaned valuable information from them and sharing their YouTube videos becomes a part of the fun.

Hats off to Grinding Gear Games. I appreciate how they’ve provided an entertaining, state-of-the-art ARPG game without the blatant money grab that so many companies succumb to.

I like how accessible GGG is to the gaming community. It’s good to see the streamers interviewing designers like Jonathan and Mark and how they listen to their suggestions. GGG has been responsive to feedback and appears to be continually fine tuning everything from the spells to the monsters to the maps. You gotta respect any company that listens to their consumers and makes changes to improve their product. Kudos to them.

Sorry I’m not listing my pros or cons about POE 2. The streamers have already done a 1000x better job than I can at explaining the game’s intricacies, of which there are many. In that regard, POE 2 is not simple. It’s a thinking person’s game.

If I could I would give the game a neutral rating.

At launch, PoE 2 hit just right, they wanted to slow the game down a bit compared to the first one and they got it right at first, just the perfect amount of deviation so that it both differs and remains what PoE stands for. All they had to do was build upon it and refine the weak corners but sadly the developers have a whole different vision for PoE 2 that does not fit the franchise's identity at all.

Right now it's something like a tablet, it tries to be a phone and a pocket computer at the same time but sucks at both because you are way better off with going in a single direction. The same applies to the current state of the game, it is still mostly an ARPG first and foremost but devs try to push a mix of soulslike gameplay and combo gameplay, where every individual encounter has to be a challenge on its own. This kind of gameplay is being instantly negated by the ARPG side of gameplay where the player is swarmed by a whole ass nation of enemies and does not really have time to flex Tekken style 20 button combos or time parry against the enemies without being deleted in an instant.

During the developer livestream Jonathan showed resistance and tried to counter some of the points people have brought up against the current state of the game, while it is admirable that he defends his vision of the game, it does show that he cares about his game but sadly he tries to make PoE 2 something the game is not supposed to be. Just keep the idea and release a different game that carries your vision and people will be ok with it because it will not be trying to change the nature of their already established ARPG franchise.

Despite the mess of a state the game is in right now, I will keep the rating positive rather than negative because they are showing willingness to change the game against their taste for the sake of their community, so I believe it will get into a better shape in time.

I've played this game for over 600 hours. I beat the campaign and all of the end game content with multiple characters. I do not recommend this game. Why? This game loves to waste your time.

Is this game fun? To a point it is. The campaign is the strongest point. If you're at all an OG Diablo fan, then Act 1 will make you grin like an idiot for hours. Its just really well done. Acts 2 and 3 are nowhere near as good but they aren't bad and have some really cool memorable moments and bosses. After you beat the campaign on normal and cruel difficulty, you begin the "end game". This is where Path of Exile 2, goes from fun to WTF:

The Loot:

None. Garbage. Zippo. Zilch. You will be playing the game for hours, go through ten or more levels and still be rocking gear from ten or more levels ago. Why? Because loot drop rate in this game is still absurdly bad. I have had well over 100% rarity find and still barely get any good sort of currency or gear drops. The community has been bringing up the loot issue to the developers non stop and while it has improved ever so slightly, it is still one of the lowest points about the game. Which is ironic, because PoE2 is an ARPG which is supposed to be all about the loot. Unless of course you happen to be a streamer, then you'll get Divines and Perfect Jeweler Orbs dropped like candy... Oh wait we're not supposed to talk about that... Sorry... Streamer Client isn't real....

The "Crafting" System:

This isn't so much a crafting system per se, but more of a let me use some rare currency to "discover" some extra random properties on this item that I thought was going to be good but is now a useless piece of **** just like nearly every other item. There is no crafting. Its pretty much a casino roll. The devs have recently introduced some ways to make the crafting system feel like an actual crafting system, but you guessed it -those ways cost rare currencies that happen to rely on an abysmal drop rate.

The XP Loss on Death:

Probably one of the biggest offenders, the XP loss on death. At levels 70 and above, every time you die you will lose a percentage of your experience. This is egregious in a game that has monster on death effects that will kill you from 100-0, random enemy attacks that you do not see coming because of poor visual clarity or just a floor effect that you weren't aware that you were standing on for the past 0.5 seconds and are now dead. You will die from things that will make you question why the **** you are still playing this game.

And this is where it has brought me. If you plan on playing POE2 for its campaign, then I think you'll find this game to be a solid bit of fun. However, if you are at all a player who likes to take their character to the limit and enjoy the power fantasy aspect of creating a cool build and finding great loot... I can't recommend this game in its current state. Trust me when I say this, this game LOVES to waste your time, so don't take the bait like I did.