Fresh League leveling with anything off-meta is like repeatably slamming your head against a wall. The skills are designed in a way that feels extremely restrictive, and most of them just aren't viable during the Campaign.

For me, the most enjoyable part of ARPGs is the slow and steady progress you make throughout the entire game. Sure, there are power spikes here and there, but most of these games make you feel like you're constantly going in the right direction.

Struggling up a sheer wall, in the hopes of finding a semi-functional build on the other side, isn't fun. This isn't just a balance/numbers issue. The entire skill system funnels you down specific paths, with restrictions like gem acquisition further exacerbating the issue.

Currently (0.3 and before), PoE2 has by far the worst leveling experience I've ever experienced in any game of the genre. It punishes experimentation, wastes your time with overly large zones, and just isn't fun to play for the first few hours of an untested build. It doesn't matter how (potentially) good/fun the endgame is, if you never get there because you quit out of frustration during the Campaign.

The main reason this review is negative, is the utterly insane decision to force everyone into the Trial of the Sekhemas (don't get hit Honour bs).
It was fine as an optional activity in PoE1, but who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to make it the requirement for getting your Ascendancy?! I assume that person doesn't play melee or knows Thorns build are a thing. I never thought I would miss the lab.

Hopefully, they fix these things in future patches, and I'll update the review once the game is in a better state.

game is pretty fun when you don't have people constantly telling you it's the worst game of all time

I don't know game balance doesn't feel right ... Most of the skills are junk. Also many skills that take 3 seconds to activate? This is very active game who would be standing on same spot waiting for 3s for skill to get activated?? This doesn't make any sense. Some classes also feel very under powered for instance warrior compared to which. Maybe game gets better at higher level i'm not sure, but on lower levels it's just huge drag that kills whole motivation to keep playing