Path of Exile free to play in about six hours.

[LennyLen]

I am not a fan at all of the economy. I would much rather have what they have now but all with an underlying base of a fixed currency.

The game is designed around flexibility. So what is valuable to one player may be worthless to another. In other words nothing has a fixed value. Now that the trade system is mostly in place (The forum trade mechanism still has to be implemented), having set values for items is even less necessary.

However, I'm really on the fence about the passive skill system. It allows for great flexibility but that also allows for totally destroying a toon early on, without realizing it until much later, and the last time I played much there wasn't any way to make anything more than minor fixes thus requiring a new toon.

you may take a set whole branch of skills that looks great on paper, but is useless in the long run and without any way of changing that, then you've just wasted a tremendous amount of time finding that out only to be ridiculed by the kids with no jobs about how come you didn't already know that.

It's one of the things I like about the game. Just like the character you are playing, you are venturing into a new, unknown world that is harsh and unforgiving.

Besides, by the time you get to clvl 40, you know if you're build isn't going to cut it. I don't have a lot of playing time and even I can get a character to level 40 in a few weeks. In some of the races, people get that far in a day. And if you don't want to risk experimenting, there will always be a few cookie-cutter build you can look up on the forums.