Ok I gave the game a try...
PROS
º Generally feels and plays very much like a good Diablo 2 clone. I haven't had this much fun nor have I been this addicted in the infinite, unending quest of finding the next better item(s) in similar ARPG game ever since I played Titan Quest, and to some extent the original Sacred (not that Sacred 2 is "bad", but the first was better in my opinion). Heck, I should probably also say that I haven't had this much fun since Diablo 2, quite simply put.
º Gritty, well detailed graphics, adds to the general atmosphere. For example, one place that surprised me for looking not only great but also contributed to its own atmosphere (generally well crafted map) was the Submerged Passage. dark cavern-style maps. Additionally to that, there Prison maps (Brutus boss), reminiscent of the Halls in Diablo 3, but in a darker, grittier way, generally speaking feels a lot like some of the darker maps of the first Diablo, along with some from Diablo 2. Such as the Fetid Pool (in Path of Exile) which reminds me a bit of Act III's forests (in Diablo 2).
º Flasks ("Potions") system, well thought and efficient, can have magic affixes, etc. I even found a Flask which freaking Dispels fire effects upon activation, how awesome is that? Well it's freaking awesome that's what it is. There's also "instant" regen Flasks in the veins of Diablo 2's Rejuvenation (pink'ish) Potions, which is also a good thing. They replenish as you kill monsters and the screen doesn't end up filled with Over 9000 of them like it used to be in Diablo 2. You simply replace the ones you have if you find one that's better and they drop once in a while like any other items would, rather than having 4 of them per unique monster.
º Superb Skill Gems system, very clever and feels much more distinguished, much better than Diablo 3's or even Diablo 2's, and overall one of the best skills system I've seen in ARPGs, in my opinion.
º Random maps & monsters generation (necessary in ARGPs, in my opinion).
º Great general items system, in which a seemingly useless white item can be turned into a magical item and later a rare item, or have its magical properties re-generated anew, or even simply added upon (can't believe Blizzard never thought of that one for Diablo 3, where you not only leave white or grey items on the ground where they fell, but you'd also wish that they just wouldn't be pickable at all). In Path of Exile, Every. Single. Items dropping on the ground has potential value to it if you bother looking at it and invest resources on it. Which in itself could be considered a form of gambling, and that's good in ARGPs. Just as much as Crafting was also its own form of gambling back in Diablo 2 with the Blood or Cast Crafted orange items.
º The soundtrack of this game is a definite sleeper hit on its own for me. I normally do not expect to hear memorable melodies or ambient style music in similar games. In my opinion Diablo II's soundtrack was a great exception on its own, it was superb, but an exception nonetheless, games like that usually have a crappy OST. In Path of Exile's case it's just fitting. It's not like PoE's OST is the best thing since sliced bread nor do I want to make it sound "better than it really is". The thing is that it just fits the atmosphere, it's a soundtrack that seems to just naturally flow in with the map you happen to be playing in, it feels "spot on". It's not exactly "listen to it outside of the game" material, but I will definitely keep playing the game with its own music on.
There's one very short "clip" within in one specific track that - when each time I hear it - reminds me of one specific reoccurring musical theme played in the game Shadow Man (the original, which I still own and am still a big fan of even after all the years). When I heard that it gave me goosebumps. I haven't heard music composed in a similar way (even if it lasts for around five seconds of the track) in nearly a decade of playing games. It felt awesome. Seriously, PoE's OST (so far, still haven't finished the game) is simply good (and, no, I don't really like Diablo 3's OST generally speaking, although I do genuinely really like the main theme, the "Overture" orchestrated track).
CONS
º Animations. Indeed, before giving the game a try I watched its trailer and some other game-play footage on YouTube, and already at that point I could see how not varied it seemed to be, how "stiff" it was and that it really needed to be worked on. It's still true now, and even more so now that I actually play it and see it for myself.
It's not exactly "atrociously-bad"... I don't want to make it sound like absolute horror. But animations, in general (and generalizing here is pretty much simply stating a fact) are just... not... completed? I don't know. I mean I'm not saying that the animators of the dev team "don't know what they're doing", I'm sure they know, but well... I just hope that they're going to smooth out those animations, flesh them out, polish them, and add variety of animations, heck just "mirror" the single animation that keeps repeating itself when you use one skill. The "problem" (indirectly) here is that PoE is in 3D, and we're in 2013. So, yeah, I mean sure I know ok I get the point, right, I'm not that naive, it's a small dev team. But there's competition out there. The whole "it's all about game-play" mentality is viable, yes, but not financially viable enough. You need to show that you can come up with competitive material and not make your animations in a game released in 2013 look like it was released in 2004.
So the "big point" here? Well the point being that they need to work on that aspect if they want their game to become more competitive and not end up the way of the dodo. It's an action RPG, sure, but if I am to look at this same character for the next weeks or months at least make the battles, swings, blows and thrusts feel powerful, meaningful, directed, controlled... put it the way you want but make them look good. When I play Diablo 3's Barbarian and he Leaps or Charges around, a mere screen-shake wouldn't compensate for the actual animation itself, it simply feels grand and fittingly powerful for the character, the ground suffers from it when he lands from his Leap, and the monsters are literally catapulted to smithereens meters away from the point of impact after a Charge, and the original location of the Charge's starting point of the animation leaves a brief trace of red'ish glow of energy that fades away as the Barbarian executes his movement towards the targeted area.
Animations in a 2D game in the veins of similar games such as Sacred (the original) or Diablo 2 were not that "important". They happened to be good anyway since the devs were talented enough, but in 2D games I can more easily "tolerate" animations that wouldn't show much frames a second and seem to be stiff or too sudden, or feel "weak". But in a 3D game it shouldn't be the case anymore. It was for a time but that's understandable, when 3D gaming was relatively new and generally speaking most devs around were still working out the whole animation programs themselves and such. But it's 2013 now, I don't like it when I play a new or "recent enough" game when its animations are lacking to almost any degree. I still have nightmares about Oblivion and Fallout 3's diagonal and lateral animations (or lack thereof).
If you want a more accurate example coming directly from Path of Exile, just play as a Marauder and swing any weapons with any skills (including the basic attack). And tell me if it feels like a Marauder is performing said animations. The enemies don't even seem to suffer from anything. They die because their own dying animations demands them to die. It doesn't "feel like" the Marauder IS hitting anything. He swings "like this" and it's "like this" all the time, there's no variation, no "hump" power feeling to it, there's no soul during the battles. And this is an action RPG, which means you'll potentially look at "this one animation" or "that one" for a really, really long time, so hopefully you got some years of experience behind you when it came to older 2D games with lack of animations, because otherwise it might turn a lot of players off.
Hopefully GGG works on those animations over time. But I won't hold my breath, usually animations in games are simply never updated, unless said game has been funded and active for nearly a decade. I've honestly never seen anything along the lines of "animation patches" around (if there's any in history, let me know, I'm genuinely curious about that).
º The sounds. No, not the music, but the sounds. Similar to the animations, the sounds veriety and "hump" during battles, is seriously lacking. Most monsters are emitting the exact same grunts and growls, over, and over, and over... and over... and... over again, without much variation (if any at all). When you fight, your own character's magical or physical efforts seem completely... well... effortless. When my Marauder gets hit, he barely whispers a slight "ugh". When he swings or even leaps around, there's barely any audible will to do so on his part. Again, take Diablo 3 (heck, Diablo 2)'s Barbarian as an example, do I have to describe how it sounds to play him?
This is another aspect of the game that needs working. Give sounds more variety to start with, new ones that will add to the whole library of sounds assets in the game. Do that for monsters and the characters themselves. Then increase volume or I don't know... do something for combat-related sounds, especially for the Marauder, the guy sounds bored of all things.
º Maps and orientation confusion. I do like how the "minimap" (Tab key) ends up being about the same as Diablo 2's, even looks old-style, that's alright. Although an old-school map like that in a recent 3D game... dunno, I guess it looks cool for asthetics or you can just pretend that it's fun like this since it worked for D2, but D2 is also a game that was released more than a decade ago by now.
But, anyway, beyond the fact that I believe making a minimap like that wasn't "necessary" (I mean making it old-school style) I think that generally speaking knowing where you should go next isn't as obvious as it could be, nor it "should" be. This is perhaps quite subjective, as some players around won't mind actually "looking around" long enough until they coincidentally stumble upon the "right" map exit that will itself coincidentally lead you to the next "step" of the chapter. But some players like me consider ARGPs to be items-hunting mayhem, not exactly "pause my character here for a moment and open the map because I'm kinda lost right now" kind of mayhem. Maybe it's because I'm still new to the game, but I'm not "new" to this type of mapping system, heck it's pretty much exactly the same as D2's, which is a game I've played for nearly eight years of my life (although in retrospect I might have been lost for some time when I first played D2).
My "problem" about the map is just that it doesn't indicate the name of the map that an exit or an entrance leads to, or comes from. For example, if I open up to the map (with Tab) and I happened to have explored it all, it'll also show entrances and exits (orange "door" like archways). Well, on the map itself without having to point the cursor anywhere those doors should be named. If I'm in Terrace (I think it's the name of the first main map outside of the first town) and I need to go to the Submerged Passage, then the name itself "Submerged Passage" should be shown on-screen, on the map's corresponding entrance towards said next map, rather than being literally invisible until you physically get to that door with your character and hover your cursor on the door and see the name.
In addition to that, what contributes to my confusion is the general map's cardinal directions (when pressing 'U' which opens the "world map"). For example, if I only look at that map then I conclude that if I want to go kill Brutus then I got to head North (or North-East or so). But when I'm in the game's map itself and open up the minimap (with Tab) and only move north... then sometimes there's simply no entrances found nowhere north, nor is there any guarantee that even if there is an entrance north that it will lead you north in the general map anyway.
Example, I was in a map called Mud Flats, and on the general map from Mud Flats there's two paths towards the north (and one south towards to main Lioneye's Watch town). I wanted to go to Submerged Passage which, on the general map, is located north-east from Mud Flats, when the other path leads to Fetid Pool to the north-west. So within the Mud Flats map itself, after exploring it completely, I looked at the minimap and realized that there simply was no entrance going nowhere at all towards the north-east portion of said minimap. So I went towards the only entrance I saw, located to the west, other than the exit I came out from which was located to the south (from Terrace, the previous map to the south) and it lead to me the Submerged Passage anyway. Now the thing is, when I got to Submerged Passage and after exploring it, the only entrance towards the northern part of the map lead me to the second lower level of the Passage, even though on the general map, if I go north from Submerged Passage I should end up in "The Ledge", but I ended up in "Flooded Depths" (which is like Submerged Passage Level 2).
So, is that just a mere consequence of random map generation? Perhaps. If that's the case then they should "restrict" the randomization to "within" the maps themselves, and rather just keep the map "borders" fixed and not randomly regenerated, so that going north from 'x' map will lead you north to the next logical step as shown on the map world. In Diablo 2 most maps were also randomly generated, but some of them remained intact for clarity in direction. For example, Act 4, towards the Sanctuary, the map was always the "same" map, and the Sanctuary always towards the east, never changing, or the same can be said for Act V's Throne chamber with Baal's minions.
I think that PoE could benefit from "fixed" direction "pillars" (I.E. fixed mapping to some degree to limit confusion on direction). Although I'm aware, as I said, this is quite subjective as some people will consider this a non-issue and in fact would say that it contributes to "exploration". To each their own, I don't mind that much I can live with it, but it's a bit annoying, for now anyway.
º The currency system. I place this into "CONS" although it's not a "CON". I'd rather put that into a "Why" category. I mean, what was the goal, reinvent the wheel? Why not just having Gold, but perhaps just dropping less often? Problem solved? No? So they decided to... use scrolls instead... could as well just change the scrolls item to that of a Gold coin and make it drop 2 times as much and we're back into a Gold currency, we're not that far away from that with the current system. The difference being that we can also identify items with this "Gold" that happens to be a scroll. So if you identify too much stuff around you get poor... but we could as well pretend that we could just right-click on Gold coin in D3 and also happen to be able to ID items with that too. I mean... meh, I don't know. This whole scrolls currency system seems to me like they were trying a bit too hard to try "something new" for the sake of trying something new because "Gold currency is old" or something along the lines.
Maybe I don't put enough thought into it and I don't realize something that would otherwise be obvious. But for now I just don't get "why" they bothered with this. It could have remained Gold but you can also just limit it more if you want... I mean you're the devs so... make the corresponding algorithms to make things rare if you want but Gold can remain and it still works as a currency. Also, suspension of disbelief can't exactly work in all cases. Hey, sir, I'd like to buy you this two-handed mace, but I only have 2 scrolls out of the three that you're asking for. But see, kind merchant sir, the thing is I just went battling zombies in the Fetid Pool and the place is so humid that my scrolls are now wrenched, and wet, and worthless for now, can you still please accept them next time though. 'cause in between chances are I'm going to way daytime and it's gonna dry up a bit...
Anyway, seems too much efforts to change a system that didn't need changing (I.E. could have kept the Gold currency in but worked out rarity around if they wanted to).
OVERALL
A great game, definitely. I do have my cons about it. I have a bit more cons than what I mentioned above although most of the others being too subjective to be worth mentioning, and also minor in general. But, yeah generally speaking the pros of PoE far surpass the cons, in my opinion. In fact, if GGG (the devs) can work out those animations and sounds... JUST doing that would pretty much convince me to dedicate the next months to this nonetheless quite addicting game. It is fun, it really is, give it a chance guys. Seriously, despite the cons I can't believe a game like this is basically free with minor micro-transactions as their source of funding (which itself can be a concern, but time will tell).