I recently started playing Path of Exile again after receiving an email regarding their 2 week charity race event. Playing hard core with extra game mechanics in the form of Ambush (special loot boxes that spawn enemies you have to kill before unlocking) and Invasion (randon boss enemies that are normally not found in a given area spawning) makes it much more interesting. I also found 'corrupted' side areas with enemies having special modifiers (lighting attacks, totem filled areas that buff enemies and so on) to clear. All these modifications really change up the game play even without having to reach end game.
It makes me wonder how much games (free-to-play or otherwise) can change given time and how reviews can get outdated so very quickly. Can a gamer who wants to play an old game still rely on old reviews to judge whether he'll be interested? Updates are happening all the time, more so now that practically everyone has access to the internet, and if reviews to free to play games get updated, would it be fair to games that are buy-to-play? The new loot system, for example, improves Diablo 3 a lot, even without the expansion. (but it doesn't matter since D3 had great reviews?)(on the other hand, the consensus of players was that D3 was bad before the loot 2.0 patch.)
Free-to-play games though, are, well, free, so we can just play it and judge for ourselves, so does it really matter? Well, it can be argued that the time invested before knowing whether a game is bad could potentially cost more. Unfortunately, besides looking to hard core players of the game in question, it's hard to get a good review, and even then, the opinions of these gamers will definitely be biased. Perhaps one day, people will figure out what to do, but until then, the forums and patch notes will be an OK way to understand the quality of a game that's been out for a while.
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