Grim Dawn is a curious mess of a game, but it overall wraps around to being a somewhat decent experience. There's definitely fun to be had, but there's also a few things holding it back from being great.
The main positives are mostly within the presentation of the game. The graphics, style, music, and atmosphere are all excellent for what it is going for. The character and enemy designs are pretty much perfect for encapsulating a dark, vicious universe. Everything in terms of the visual experience helps with amplifying the almost horror aspect of the game's world. I especially enjoy the weapon, armor, and magic relic designs. It's really cool stuff.
Now, for the gameplay. It's a mess, really. The best way to describe the actual gameplay part (exploring, fighting bosses, conquering areas of the map, shrines, etc) is "overcooked". There is way too much stuff for little to no reason. The game is also just way too long. To make a balanced experience, you need to choose one or the other. You need to either have a lot of stuff, or have the game be long. You can't do both for a really good feeling game. This game does both, obviously. There's so much loot (most of it useless due to a lack of weighted drops), the maps are gigantic, there's so many builds, so many bosses, so much grinding to be had just to get that 1 drop you want. It's too much, and it's "overcooked". On top of this, the game has a LOT of one-shotting enemies. The boss Bolvar being the obvious exaggeration of this problem, but it's also within a lot of normal enemies too. So that makes the gameplay balancing also a bit problematic. The visual clarity can be messy with how much stuff happens in these fights, causing you to get one-shot by a random pellet the boss shot out. There's fun to be had, though, due to the build variety, clearing out short areas can be fun, and doing missions helps with the sense of direction.
There's just so much crap that it'd be awesome to want to explore all of it, but then the game itself is just way too long. It causes you to become exhausted from all of the grinding that you don't even want to try other builds in another run. Unless you want to grind this game like a job, it's a "come-back-every-so-often" type of game.
3/5, get on sale.
