Ahead of its time in some ways, and painfully dated in many others. I loved the storytelling, the realistic locations, detailed ambient soundscapes, scripted setpiece moments, and the combat when the game was playing fair. Unfortunately the gameplay often devolves into trial-and-error tedium, where you'll grind your way through encounters and quicksave every couple minutes knowing instant death is always just around the corner. The game punishes you for using its iconic dive by leaving you defenseless and unable to shoot at the beginning and end of the animation, and using slow motion is often frustrating because suddenly your bullets travel at a snail's pace, requiring you to lead your targets in a way that just doesn't feel right. Sometimes you pounce on a group of enemies and kill them with a quick burst of precise gunfire and it feels great, other times you'll pump 5 shotgun blasts into a goon's face as they continue shooting you like the Terminator. I can't imagine what a slog this must have been on consoles back in the day.

I was going to write a long detailed review explaining all my problems with this thing, but then I realized: the developers of this game didn't give a shit, so why should I? Every facet of this game is junk. The controls feel terrible. My character regularly stood in place attacking thin air when I wanted them to move, and they would walk into objects when I wanted them to attack. The maps are blandly designed hallways built out of the same handful of assets you'll see repeated endlessly. Loot is a joke, with most items having just 1 or 2 uninteresting affixes from the beginning of the game to the end. Character progression is slow and has virtually zero depth, only offering a single skill point per level and no other character customization beyond your initial class choice. The endgame is insultingly shallow and pointless. It lacks the mod support that gave the other 2 Torchlight games years of extra replayability. Even the soundtrack by the usually great Matt Uelmen is forgettable.

If you enjoyed the other Torchlight games, or you're just looking for a new ARPG to play, you might see a video of this one and think it looks alright. Don't bother, in 5 minutes you've already seen everything this game has to offer. It's a buggy unfinished mess, and probably would've fared better without the 11th hour pivot from their original f2p business model.