Refreshing game when you played too much PoE. I will compare this game a lot to PoE, since PoE is my main point of reference for free2play ARPG.
You can see the inspiration devs took from PoE but there are also enough new mechanics to keep it fresh.
There is a reason this game is not called "Torchlight 4" and that is, that this is not supposed to be a successor of the series.

At this point (Nov 2nd 2022) the game is in early access and it shows. You can tell the UI was designed for phones. Also some QoL features would be nice and the english translation is lacking sometimes.
Also there is no multiplayer, except for chat and the market, at the moment. The devs say it should come some time next year.

There is the same mechanic that crafting material is also used as currency.
Crafting is also a lot simpler and straight forward. You can craft one Pre- or Postfix at a time with increasing costs the more affixes the item has.

Skills are so inspired by PoE skills, that I refer to them by their PoE names. Sure, Blade Vortex is now a ice skill, but it's still BV for me.
Skills are not socketed into gear, instead your gear has an energy level. With increasing energy you can unlock support slots for your skills and then socket support gems into these skills directly. There is a limited amount of Active and Passive skill slots, which reserve mana (or life).

Mapping is similar to PoE, but the maps are not randomly generated. The maps are the same like the story maps before endgame, just with higher level enemies.
The gameplay is much faster than current PoE. Zooming is totally possible and the current meta has already screen clearing builds.
You can basically "alch-and-go" maps or use compasses, which are dropped by enemies, to further modify the map (like "3 more rare monsters", "30% more currency drops", etc.). Using compasses will increase the monster difficulty, as expected.

A big plus is that you can respec you char until the early mapping stages completely for free (until level 80). So there is no restarting because you don't have enough respec points. Respec points can be bought in the real money shop, but they also drop like candy.

• Some classes (think PoE Ascendencies) are locked behind a one-time payment, some are locked behind ingame challenges.
  
• Items give close to no visual differences. Only weapons show in some way on your char. Other cosmetics are behind a paywall.
  
• Pets have minimal impact on your char and are primarly cosmetic. But they are obtained using Gacha mechanics, aka. loot boxes.
  
• There is a premium battlepass that gives more consumable items and premium currency.
  
• There is a "free" and "premium" auto-loot, but the difference is one kind of currency that gets automatically picked up. No gear will be auto-looted.
  
• Consumables can be purchased for real money, that 1) negate EXP loss on death 2) give respec points. But they can also be gained ingame. And 5% EXP loss on death is a justifiable penalty in my opinion.
  
• Stash tabs and market place tabs can be purchased for money.

When you want to improve your character, you will go to the market and look for better items. The idea of spending real money to improve your char will not cross your mind, because it doesn't work. Better items can not be gained using money, but I guess, like in all games, it's just a matter of time until illegal RMT bots are there. But that's not a problem with the game design.

The game has three month seasons with seasonal characters, like in PoE or D3. After the season the chars go to standard.
The current seasonal event is like "Breach-lite", where some enemies invade your world and the drop some corrupted gear. And also you can corrupt gear in town with some seasonal currency.

If you like PoE, but you want to go back to the zoom-zoom times, you will probably like this game.
You can also play it on the toilet.