In Path of Exile any decision at any point in time matters

Dude it takes like 10 hours to hit lvl 60(edit) to get a good grasp of the game(edit), when in most cases by that time you can flush out a build and get a feel for it. Its far better to just level a new guy than it is to regret your whole skill tree, plus they let you wipe your character like every other season so that's a free redo there.

In D3 its actually just Gauntlet now and you just pick a class and start leveling its alot of fun to play but there isn't alot of depth.

Its not entirely "free" because without buying extra stashes you are screwed late game. You cant even use the unofficial auction house without them.

You can buy but you cant sell. Dont tell me that having 4 stash tabs doesnt dramatically affect gameplay when p2w people can buy 800 stash tabs and sell the gear comfortably over internet. A p2w player will always be many times richer than an f2p player because of this.

Yeah, thats why I had 10 characters named Geardumpsterone to Geardumpsterten for rare items that were jsut too good to get rid of. And I was playing hardcore only, the are gonna softcore players do with all the good rares.

Stashes = pay to win because it flat out gives you more gear for alts. Default 4 stashes are completely insufficient because like 1 stash will be taken by your poe currency and 1-2 stashes by a chaos recipe alone. So you got like 1-2 stashes for storing actual gear. I was level 94 in hardcore Perandus. As a melee character. Trade chat is almost completely dead because everyone sells over Path of Exile. Trade. Thats like saying that you can play some MMO without +10% pvp damage scrolls obtainable only from a cash shop. Sure its not ideal but the game is still playable!