Why were you attracted to Path of Exile?

This article is what started it all for me. It may not look like much to most people, but I am glad my curiosity got the better of me... I had played Final Fantasy III [VI], but I had never even heard of the FF VII system for skills, nor FF X passive tree, as I have never owned a Playstation.

What captured my interest was the energy shield, as the flaws from the Mana/Protoss Shield concepts from Diablo I & II and Starcraft (II's campaign disappointed me, it was what I expect Diablo III to be like, dumbed down to the level of a junior high school student, i.e a 12 year old) seemed to be solved (as explained by the PCGamer article), and from my Alpha and now Beta experiences, I know they have. Using up your mana as an elementalist was a death wish, while you could not kill anything without using your 'health'... While the Protoss Shield regenerated far too slowly and the base health could not be healed.

The mature, dark and foreboding ambience in the Witch trailer, and the Media section's videos (particularly the one with the Skill System Demonstration) are what sealed the deal... The int characters are what interest me most, you can literally play every play style, ranged physical projectile weapons (bows :(, wands), melee weapons (maces :(, staves, and now scepters, among others), as well as spells and eventually traps as well.

I am also one of the few people who has played a Duelist for reference (which for me was much the same as Int/Dex, hit and run, thereby further eliminating my desire to play the non-int classes), a melee Int/Dex character, as well as a Staff Templar, well into Merciless and a Witch in the Maelstrom of Chaos. So you can take my word on it Energy Shield is by far the best armor type (at least up until 9.2 anyway) and with the hybrids you can take advantage of the other types of armor as well.

I'm a subscriber to Mr. Total Biscuit channel on YouTube. I saw his video for first impressions of Path of Exile. The passive skill tree is what attracted my attention the most. That and the art style and game type (I like the Diablo 2 game but the skill system there is frustrating in its impossibility to easily diversify and use more than 3-4 skills). The skill gems are fascinating as personally I haven't seen a game with such system.

I have seen in another indie company game a trade system where the players actually don't use the possible currency system (which they have to create themselves) - instead they deal by barter. Of course there isn't a shop there so the trade is free for all basically :). I wonder how the general trade items shops will be managed compared to other similar games. Of course for the special effects items I expect different cash shop or something since the folks in GGG have to get money out of the game. (hoping for SMS payment possibility).

In general great game as far as I can tell. Possibly still a lot of work to be done, but the boon for players here is that the development team actually listens to players feedback.

For myself it was the "WTF is..." done by TotalBiscuit and watching the trailers. I really liked the spell effects they showed. To me if a game isn't enjoyable to watch it's not going to be worth my time to play. Aesthetics are everything!

Totalbiscuit introduced me to the game with his WTF series.
What interested me was just the general feeling of Diablo that I got from looking at gameplay, the UI, graphics, everything.

I don't actually remember when exactly I found this game. I do know that TB's video reminded me that it existed, and that the main selling point for this game for me has always been the just completely mental passive tree, though. And the passive tree alone is still worth playing this game for. I do so love skill path building. ;D.

Pretty much everything about this game attracted me.. The biggest thing though is how they said they aim to have the game going on long term so they wont put OP items in cash shop so people spend loads of money right when the game comes out.. which will make a lot of people quit. By not selling items that make things better for money spenders the game will get popular faster which means more customers eventually..

The realistic looking graphics.

The realism applied to the character models and the architecture.

The soundtrack from the trailers.

The smooth transition between animations displayed by the characters in the trailers.

The skill tree.

The overall presence of the game. It comes off as dark and gloomy, with the player being the last beacon of hope.