I can fully understand someone hating this game; if I was not using the wiki while playing I would have given up an hour in. However, I have now put over 700 combined hours into base Terraria and tModLoader (Calamity alone), and I find the progression of your character's strength and abilities to be consistently engaging and rewarding.

There are several different classes and sub-classes you can play as, all offering tailored experiences (to the extent of the collection of materials that benefit your specific class, mostly in the form of fighting enemies). These help to differentiate your runs and give you a better handle on all of the content the game has to offer. While on paper it does not sound all that interesting or unique, the art direction and sound design really bring together what the game is aiming for, in my opinion anyway.

I think that the building is a great system, but I am not nearly creative enough to come up with super interesting builds to focus my runs on. Exploration, too, feels great; the rapid progression of being able to maneuver your way around underground and in the sky is very nice. The bosses and combat are the real stand out of the game for me, though. It is extremely satisfying to finally beat a major boss after several hours of collecting the right materials to make a cool new weapon and learning an enemies attacks.

I also believe that multiplayer is pretty much a necessity for having the most fun playing this. If I had not been playing with a friend, I am not sure how much I would have enjoyed it, considering how slow it can be at times. In totality though, I have really appreciated all of the time I have poured into the two iterations of Terraria that I have played.