Path of Exile is, in my humble opinion, the best ARPG out there and with the recently released Ascendancy expansion it has surpassed even its previous heights.
Ascendancy brought with it a daily randomized dungeon, a rework of the already massive and complex skill tree, new ascendancy classes, plenty of new skills, support gems and so much more. Here's the trailer, just in case you missed it, along with my first impressions of the new content:
This would be where I usually list out the patch notes and give you a brief overview of what exactly changed but given how monolithic the update is I can only recommend you head over to the official forums and scour the list for things of interest to you and your build, as otherwise we'd be here reading all day, instead of walking in to traps in the Labyrinth.
After about a day of playing Ascendancy, both solo and with a friend, I can comfortably say that this is by far the most fun Path of Exile league I've ever played and vastly superior to the previous Talisman league. The main gimmick is that there are numerous chests filled with loot & coins scattered across the land and guarded by hordes of bloodthirsty enemies whose only goal in life is to make yours miserable. While the battles for these chests might be hellish, especially on higher difficulties, the rewards are well worth the effort as you will gain a nice assortment of rare items from them as well as Perandus coins which can be traded for even more items, including uniques (think legendary items).
Add to this a whole assortment of new skills, support gems and ascendancy classes and you've got yourself an ARPG with seemingly endless possibilities for destruction. During my time with Ascendancy I tried out two builds, one focused around Frost Blades which played very much so like Templar Assassin from Dota 2 and one that rolled with the new Earthquake skill that despite the brutish name required a fair bit of strategy since the majority of the damage was delayed.
How I like to imagine my pants-less Templar looking while he uses Earthquake
As for the Labyrinth, that part of Ascendancy I'm not so sure about just yet. The main problem is that its overly long, sometimes taking upwards of two hours if you're at the recommended level, and because the last boss is comically overtuned and capable of almost one-shotting even my heavily armored Templar. Trying to beat him down in hardcore mode resulted in far more butt-cheek clenching then I was comfortable with, especially given that this was only Cruel, the second hardest difficulty.
While I would like to see the Labyrinth get a second balance pass I am overall extremely happy with Ascendancy and if you're someone that enjoys RPGs or Diablo style games then I fully recommend you go for Path of Exile. Its free, its awesome and the developers are some of most friendly folks you'll see on this side of the Internet.