Grim Dawn

Expansions and DLC come up in 33% of longer reviews. Some players treat Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods as part of the real game, for their new classes, acts and endgame modes, and say they bought the full bundle after a few hours: "The expansions are somewhat mandatory imo for quality of life, but everything is regularly on sale and well worth the price." The other side objects to exactly that. Players complain that classes such as the Necromancer sit behind DLC, that the base game caps their level and difficulty options, that Fangs of Asterkarn requires owning the earlier expansions, and that the base story ends without resolving its mystery. Respecs come up here too: "A proper respec will cost you a DLC." Several call the Crucible arena add-on optional.

Fangs of Asterkarn and the 1.3 update that reviewers say shipped with it come up in 11% of longer reviews, and they split returning players. Fans praise its new areas, the Berserker class and its werewolf form, WASD movement ("The new WASD movement is much appreciated") and the quality-of-life changes, and some rank it the best expansion yet. A vocal group of veterans says the patch rebalanced the game around the dodge, which reviewers say first arrived in a 2024 update: much larger boss health pools, more sunder attacks, faster Nemesis spawns and one-shots that tanky builds cannot survive. About 12% of all negative reviews complain about one-shots, mandatory dodging, sunder, boss health or level scaling, and most of them tie it to these updates. One edited review reads: "The latest DLC changed this gem of a game into a POE2-esque soulslike where you will get oneshot unless you use a poorly made dodge mechanic at the exact right time." Another says "Nemesis mobs now spawn much faster and spam sunder over and over." Defenders answer that "this isnt dark souls or close to it, theres no penalty for dying", and one player who was put off at launch wrote later that "several patches and hotfixes have tightened that up". The new interface split players in a smaller way, with some calling it cleaner and others finding its contrast hard on the eyes.

Reviewers who call the game dated, old or ugly (6% of longer reviews) often shrug it off in the same breath: "It is starting to show its age, and the graphics are honestly kind of ugly (personal taste), but the gameplay is smooth as silk." Players say the art direction holds up, that it runs on old laptops and handhelds, and that texture mods help. For others the look is the deal-breaker ("Grim Dawn is old and it's not visually pleasant."), usually alongside stiff animations, effects that hide enemy attacks, and an engine some say leans on a single CPU core.

Complexity, the learning curve or poor explanations come up in 7% of longer reviews, and resistances and damage types in 5%. Some players enjoy learning by doing and say the campaign can be finished without a guide. Others hit a wall: "There is A LOT to understand and I definitely had a few moments where I had no idea what I was doing", or more bluntly, "No instruction about anything so you dont know how anything works". The usual sticking points are capping a long list of resistances ("Too many Damage sources made the game just a resistance management simulator."), tooltips players say do not match what skills do, devotion routes, and the lack of any log showing what killed you. Some point newcomers to the community planner Grim Tools.

Couples, siblings and friend groups describe whole campaigns played together ("A very good co-op game that I play with my wife."), and co-op comes up in 9% of longer reviews. The complaints are practical. Everyone in a game needs the same expansions, which catches out players who bought the DLC and then tried to bring in a friend on the base game ("if one person has DLC and the other doesn't, you cannot play multiplayer together"). Others report lag and desync, connections that only work after changing network settings, crashes when another player opens the stash, and quest dialogue that only the player who started it hears; one writes that "multiplayer is plagued with consistent lag issues".

Controllers, handhelds and the Steam Deck come up in 5% of longer reviews, and the reports point both ways. Some play mainly on the Deck and praise the battery life and smooth performance; one writes that "Recent updates have really improved the Steam Deck experience." Others, often in their first hours, complain about a cursor that vanishes in menus, inventory that is awkward with a pad, too few bindable skill slots and small text, and a few say they refunded: "Controller 'support' is mouse emulation, text is small and unreadable from any distance." One Deck player warns that "A recent patch made the cursor invisible on Steam Deck", and some players with non-Steam controllers or a ROG Ally describe trouble getting the controls to work at all. Some Linux players report that the 1.3 update stopped the game launching until a SteamOS and Linux launch option was added.

Players like that skill points can be refunded cheaply mid-campaign, and new players appreciate being able to fix mistakes. The complaint is that the second class cannot be swapped once chosen ("I cannot respec the second class I've chosen") and that, according to reviewers, resetting attributes and devotions needs an expansion, so trying a new combination means leveling another character through the campaign.

Some players say Normal is far too easy and that harder difficulties stay locked until the campaign is finished, so the game only pushes back on a second or third run. One newcomer gave up early: "Game is way too easy, i was holding left click in place for the first two hours". Others dislike that moving up to Elite and Ultimate resets world progress for that character. A different group says the difficulty felt right, recommends the Veteran option for a first run, and calls Hardcore the best way to play.

Players who read the lore notes are generally happy, but 2% of longer reviews call the main plot weak, bland or abruptly finished. Several say the base game ends without answering its central question, and one asks "the story feels unfinished. Am I supposed to buy all the DLCs?" Others mention mostly unvoiced dialogue and walls of quest text.