My personnal review, neither good or bad gamer

I love the game, this keep me more engaged than poe1 on many points. Art direction, graphics, the fact that you cleary see what armor you are wearing is very good. I mean you see from visual and damage the progress you make.
The level design is great even when the maps are too big sometimes and my god the music is great.
From an artistic point of view, the team is on point and this is what that keep me playing the game mostly. The boss design(visuals and voices) are great in general.
Gameplay wise, the game feels great. I tried different skills from each of the weapons and it's cool to have combos and synergies. The animations are great especialy with skills that makes you move. You feel cool with flashy moves and sometimes it's all you need.
To makes things clear, I'm not a "veteran" or the best gamer in the world. I'm just a normal guy who loves playing and having fun with that. I never played Diablo, just Torchlight Infinite to have a break from Poe1 so I love ARPGs.
I never followed a build guide and I don't believe in the "difficulty" argument or the "skill issue" one. I have to go blind and learning from myself. The passive tree has the reputation to be daunting but in reality it didn't bothered me at all because you just have to read things. I love the idea that you can make every build possible or adapt on the get go.
I never cared about endgame or the lack of it because I never made it this far, I always stopped before because of unfairness. The best Act for me was the first one, then it began to be a nightmare after. I thought many times because I made the wrong choices or having bad gear at the moment but at some point it's design flaws.
I said I don't trust the "difficulty" argument because it's always from one individual perspective: it's difficult beacause you are losing and it's easy because you are winning. Players will always make builds to destroy everything, make things easy. If you love difficulty, let the players make things harder themselves like playing a part of the game without armor(the gear). I think about an arena mode like Monster Hunter with leaderboard(time completition).
If you thought about making the game challenging, it's a different thing. I do think something is challenging when you have to pay attention. Bosses are challenging because I have to pay attention on some moves. Some normal enemies have my attention too(looking at you slam team and the AK47 poison gang).
My most loved bossfights was the two praetors from Act 1 : Two different movesets (Draven was melee and Asinia a caster) but they called each other because it's a couple. That made sense and it was great, gameplay with the addition of lore. I hated Poe1 for the bossfight because I always thought the game was not designed for it and with the dodge roll addition you made it possible(great addition).
Infinite dodge roll is a choice we can all agree or disagree with. That mean you can never die but it's a also a reason to throw many things at a player expecting them to dodge. I can get a timing on a one-shot move or a mechanic but swarming your screen with monsters, spears, rocks, divine arrow etc is not fun, just annoying. This is why the "skill issue" argument is not valid. It's about the player skill to make choices, dodging at the right time.
For example, my builds were not perfect but at first i got destroyed by Gaenor. From restarting characters I got better at the game, knowing his patterns. Sure the fight was easier sometimes with the right gear and passives but sometimes I just felt my loses was because of the RNG.
I'm ok with the "drop more meaningful" idea but what makes gear meaningful? Defenses and damage. On most cases, they are modifiers on gear that are useless and define the "trash gear". I'm looking for a better bow for exemple at level 10. I grab a base from a vendor and upgrade from there. Currency drops are ok, I have at least one way to make a full magic item. Making a rare one is not even a question I will have to wait 2 acts later. It may be an issue but when I upgrade something, I have to pray everytime that the one stat I'm looking for from 10 will pop-up. Maybe accuracy is something to consider later on endgame but why I'll care about it at level 10? Light radius?Useless.Having attributes too, It's cool to have that on accessories but why on a weapon or armor?
Why having thorn damage when most of the time you expect the player to dodge?
Sure the "gain X life on hit" can be useful, not the best but it can work. I think the whole crafting rng thing can work if the mods on items are better or enough considering when making choices.
If I follow your idea of upgrading, why not making our own legendary item with a new currency that will add an affix from a legendary pool. I dropped a few legendaries but none of them triggered my monkey brain. When I see a legendary, I'm interested at what this thing do and how it look. So why not making our own legendary affix with a visual change with it( an aura of some sort).
I don't like the gold spending respecing early. Gold is needed for gear and you can't make people pay for trying things. It's ok to make mistakes but don't punish me for it at least in the beginning. This is why I loved Torchlight Infinite, from the simple fact that you can respec for free to a point. For the early access I think it's ok to free respec until Cruel difficulty. After that you can use gold to respec because at this point your build is setup.
I don't understand the honour mechanic. That thing doesn't need to exist. It's just frustating. I understand the trial idea to get more power but I play a class for the ascendancies. First, you have to beat a boss overtuned and then deal with a mechanic that punishes you for breathing.
I love the roguelike aspect of it when each run are different. I understand that you want to make a stat and skill check for players but it forces you to look for op build when you don't have to play the game(minions). I was testing a lightning monk, clearly I handled myself but the honour killed me. Ok, I used potions but why would I care because I will die anyway because of another health pool. I just stopped asking myself why playing a class when I will not playing this ascendency. It's too much frustration for the sake of frustration.
Other thing that doesn't need to exist is the death triggers on enemies. I had the damage to kill things( Gaenor manor) but I mostly died as melee from the blood on the ground. It's the manor example but this is about too many enemies. Why doing this except to tell me "play range character"? It's another point of build diversity that punishes me for it.
Some bosses are unique like the praetors but most of them are the same thing with different skins : Making elemental, poison zones - big slam for health, dodge checks.
Beside these points, the game is more intuitive with skills and runes but the Gaenor manor will mostly make people quit for sure. The act 1 lenght is the best for me, simple yet effective. Act 2 and 3 are too long for nothing.