I don't know why I haven't reviewed this game yet, but here goes for now. So here's a little sob backstory.

I am gamepad / controller user. My regular co-op circle plays on PC. I've missed opportunities to play all manner of ARPGs from Diablo 2, Titan's Quest, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, etc. Except at the time, those games didn't have controller / gamepad support on PC and one still doesn't/ There's no crossplay from console to PC. In comes Grim Dawn. Sure, it might not be a familiar setting or archetype to play with, but for someone starving for an ARPG at this point, I went OM NOM NOM NOM.

But the problem for me... I liked breakfast too much that I rarely ate lunch, and even rarer, got to dinner. By this I mean, I have alt-mania. I created enough alts that the cloud save said I was not allowed to create alts anymore. And these alts were trying out how the first 20ish levels might go as I headed east and northward with them. I'm drawing a blank on the class names, so I'll say: be it a tanky shield-bearing Soldier that relies on retaliation, a dual wielding Nightblade that could shred single targets - but had issues with ranged damage dealers, a Sorcerer casting elemental missiles that bounced around off enemies, a Shaman shooting lightning out of a gun, or a Demolitionist throwing an explosive to clear out or weak a group of enemies before cleaning up the stragglers with fire attacks.

For character advancement options, you:
* choose two classes to represent your character
* level up to allocate one of three main attributes (imagine the equivalent of Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence)
* also gain skill points when you level up to unlock and enhance abilities and passives and/or then further invest in the core of your class to access even more abilities and passives plus some stats along the way - can respec the abilities/passives, but not the core investment
* can socket passives and sometimes access to abilities into gear that can serve in place of or in addition to your class abilities
* a breadth of gear options with randomized gear effects at randomized values, plus gear sets
* passives (and abilities) you can unlock from discovering key sites (statues?) in the world called Devotion Points that further enhance your character and can be a nice reward for exploring (or fighting in the Crucible DLC)

And as I find gear, I tells myself, “OOOH, my lightning Shaman can use this one. My Shaman with pets can use that one. My non-dual-wielding Nightblade can use this. My two-handed warrior Soldier can use that.” And end up micromanaging my inventory and alts instead of just playing the game.

So I said, “This is ridiculous. One of you needs to live the starting town and head west.” About ten characters made that trek in parallel instead of just taking one all the way to the end of the base game. As I says, I have alt-mania. And it becomes so difficult for me to just ignore the other possibilities. And this is before all the DLCs and player-created classes (Titan Quest classes, Diablo 2 classes, other) that if you wanted to shake things up on that end, you really could and/or mod the game yourself, play in custom maps, etc.

As for the game story and lore, I was horrified by it (in a good way). In the midst of culling the dangers in the land, I’d find a piece of lore and get into the writing. And I could only imagine the horrors of what people living in this world faced. It would take me out of my meta-gaming mindset and sometimes I’d approach a character as if they were living in that world. What they were seeing. What they were hearing. The atmosphere. And just really take it all in, ignoring the “oooh, look at that loot” and getting into character. Admittedly, between the lore and the characters I encountered, it propelled one character to the end of the main story available at the time. And the only part I didn’t like from this roleplaying perspective was having to choose a faction.

The game has mostly been stable for me. I’ve crashed a few times in the time I’ve played. Unfortunately, once right at the base game’s final boss area that shattered my roleplaying momentum. And when I loaded back, I was just a player trying to hurry past all the foes I fought before to get back to where I was. I was too out of character to acknowledge what was happening and the base game story had concluded in a way.

Ended up buying the DLCs when they were full price, because I realized how much time I was spending in just the base game that the DLCs could do me no wrong at this point. And my stash would have thanked me if I had done so sooner.

For co-op, unfortunately did not pan out the way I hoped. My purchase of the DLC separated me from the group. And they were getting pulled in other interests at the time that ultimately led to this being benched for a while. I could still play with them when I uninstalled/disabled the DLCs with a different set of characters. But the frequency of them playing and me playing misaligned and we only got as far as the haunted ruins just past the mines in the northwest. Co-op also being a time where characters I felt confident about solo, some having trouble.

I’ve yet to check the game with the patches and DLC in the last year. I figure I would at least write about this as it brought me joy during the years when the other ARPGs in the sub-genre were inaccessible to me on PC.

needs MANY more QoL changes and a smoother level/difficulty progression.
A limit of 100 levels, what-have-you # of skill points, and 55 devotion skills for such a humongous game is RIDICULOUS !! :O
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This game was fun, typical RPG dungeon crawler which I quite enjoy. Unfortunately, once you complete the main game, you simply are instructed to replay the game in a higher difficulty (elite) and then again on an even higher difficulty (ultimate) which feels kind of lazy. Yes, the mobs are adjusted in level and thus are still difficult to fight, but no new content is introduced, arbitrary numbers are simply increased. Though, I'm fairly certain other games of this genre also do this because I don't play RPGs all that often. Overall, it was fun, but felt kind of short (I'm aware part of the appeal of these games is to replay as another class, but personally, I am not the type of person who enjoys replaying a game).