Number of players decreasing

I was bored, so i thought i would just check out the number of players on Steam Charts and found that Poe has been in decline for a long time.

http://steamcharts.com/app/238960#All
I'm not sure if this graph represents users who launch the game through Steam only, but even if it is, it could represent a global trend.(I know its normal for a games plyer base to slowly decrease)
Of course when POE first launched on Steam you got those gamers who were lost and were trying to find their new game to play and clearly most of them made their mind up about the game by December.
Since then, the game has been slowly decreasing in its player base, i was one of them who dropped out in the last 1-2 months of Domination league also.
I am assuming the slow decrease represents the "too grindy late game" which is why i dropped out. I liked end game maps, i never had any trouble obtaining enough maps- tho obtaining lvl 68-70+ maps was starting to piss me off. Thats when i became truly bored...the grind to obtain higher lvl maps took a toll on me. I dropped out.
I also tried to play as many builds as i could, my character creation list has been usually full since closed beta, but that got boring as well since some of the truly unique and fun builds require incredibly rare items and i just don't have the time to sit in trade chat all day or grind for days, tho i try.
I recently (1 month ago) made a new summoner due to the desperately needed summoner changes and reached lvl 70 in... a few days? i think and thats when late game kicked in with maps and as soon as i reached that point, my enthusiasm just collapsed. I completed all the quests, killed merciless dominus and now i have to grind for maps-.-' I hope there will be better ways to obtain loot and level aside from grinding high lvl areas and doing maps.
Imo a bounty system would be great, you could walk up to the bounty board and obtain a "kill this asshole" quest and u have to travel to a certain area in Wreaclast and find the guys minions and kill him for a reward.

Eh, what ever... I just hope that when i reach lvl 70+ my enthusiasm and drive wont be hit by the boring, grindy late game truck. It makes me worried that the whole vaal corruption expansion isn't gonna be enough, tho i do look forward to killing Atziri, or failing horribly.
The corrupted areas seem like a fun & nice change, i just hope they arent going to be too hard to come across since they would be a breath of fresh air compared to doing low lvl maps.

Anyways...

Would i be right to assume we are going to see the exact same pattern emerge from this expansion?
Explosion on the first few weeks of the expansion due to publicity drawing in new player as well as old ones, then a drastic drop by the end of the month and yet another slow decrease.

If this expansion is whats needed then the decrease in the player base should be smaller this time around and i hope so, because i don't want to contribute to that decrease in the player base as i did previously.