A thing to consider with d4 is the maturity of the endgame. A lot of live service games take a while to iron out the endgame experience. D3 only stabilized around RoS a few years in.
Currently d4 has a good campaign and a decent mid game. Late/end game right now is a drag. It doesn't mean it's a bad game, just that blizzblizz need to analyze their telemetry and work on the game systems to give a better feeling for the 70-100 grind.

Edit: forgot to say that I do think currently the game is worth it, I had a blast playing it before I hit the endgame drag. But obviously everyone's preferences and priorities are different. At it's current state I think it's a 70 hour game, not a 1000 hour game. We'll see how blizzard does with each season!

Necro is fun, but do not expect it to be like in D2/D3. In general, the game is a bit slower paced and more challenging, depending on the classes/builds.

PoE is far more complex when it comes to the skill tree and item crafting. So if you managed to get along in PoE, perhaps followed some guides, you'll be fine in D4. If you like theory crafting and creating your own builds, D4 starts to get interesting with the paragon boards. If not, grab some guides from maxroll.gg or similar.

Compared to D2:R there is no essential need to farm for uniques, which was sometimes driving me crazy. Some builds do really shine with uniques, but you'll be fine without any.

As of mtx, it's not that bad... there is no need to purchase anything, and the unlockable visuals by salvaging drops are quite nice. In fact, at this time I do not think that mtx cosmetics are really worth it.

In addition, you can find horses and horse visuals as random drops even in world tier 1. One of the coolest horses (imho) happens to be found in the Legion events.

what I find annoying sometimes is that some quality of life features they developed in D3/D2, were not taken into account in D4. Why not take some of the things they learned over the years and put them into the game? (e.g. build saving, respec paragon all at once, gold/resource pickup pet, ...)

Gameplay is awesome. I'm having a blast! All classes are viable and during the campaign you don't need to follow a guide. Respecs are cheap in the early game so just try stuff out and enjoy yourself! I find the base game a lot of fun. It's a little zoomed in but you should get used to it.

I played through the main campaign and then some on my druid. Currently level 56. Now I'm doing hardcore. Lost two characters because Ive started bosses in Strongholds way over my level. Gonna take it more chill with my third :) It will give me a different take on gameplay. Plus I get to try more classes and builds. My game time is limited and I really enjoy this way of playing at the moment. Lets see when I lose something more valuable than a lvl 20+ with one or two legendaries :)

If by visual progression you mean corresponding to the strength of your character? I'm gonna say it's pretty much non-existent. You'll have access to all your classes transmogs fairly quick. You can look good at level 10. There is MTX but none of it is tempting to buy in my opinion, as the in-game transmog is solid.

Path of Exile has been a live service game updating for 10+ years. It shits on D4 in terms of content, diversity, and gameplay. Path of Exile is in the best state its been in for a very long time with a plethora of very viable builds available for every class and for every bit of content in the game - and there is a TON of content. If you can stomach a steep learning curve, Path of Exile dominates the ARPG market on every front except maybe graphically. There is also no visual progression in Path of Exile. You're gonna look like a clown unless you buy MTX. Straight up. It's awful. They actually havent even finished the 3D art for a lot of the gear in the game still.

Where D4 shines relative to other ARPGs on the market, imo, is in its simplicity coupled with very nice visuals and just fantastic sound design. It's also a lot of fun with friends. The skills all look good and feel good and there is a lot of attention to detail graphically that makes the game shine. You'll get a hundred hours or so of fun, and with each season (which there are no details of currently) there will be more and more to enjoy. It is barebones at the moment.

I've played PoE for 3000 hours over the past 10 years and I've put at least a hundred into D4 since launch. If you want to get D4, I'd say go for it. You'll get your moneys worth. It's fun, simple, and looks good. I'd also suggest Path of Exile too! Sorry I can't speak to Necro for ya but I hope I helped and answered some questions you may have had about the game.

Hey and welcome to lemmy^^ All the other comments and maybe my 2 cents here: blizzard is following a simple rule, easy to learn hard to master. All other games had a lot of time to geat there weaknesses polished out and add content over time. The story of D4 is solid, sidequests are well written too. The Game is pricy but it should hold up for some years. i'm already on 192 hours over 3 chars and counting.

2H Sword is at the moment the best weapon you can use on Necros, since each weapon class has it own fixed affix. Cosmetics are pretty solid, you can totally ignore the ingame shop. I think we will see the trend with the new season.

Necro has probably the best looking gear of all the classes. Necro weapon doesn’t really factor into builds currently, but Necro has some really overpowered builds like Bone Spear and some really fun permanently invincible builds like infinimist.

I’d say the game is a lot of fun right now for me, but I’m at the point where I’m slowly waiting for more content and the new season. I play a Druid and they’re extremely gear-dependant (all the builds except one or two require uniques) and so that was a bit of a struggle for some time. Level 82 and still haven’t seen that stupid Tempest Roar helmet though…

Not sure how PoE compares to D4 - one is a lot more mature and the other is newer and a bit more barebones in my opinion. There’s a big builder + spender concept in D4 that is really different from PoE and can sometimes make gameplay really clunky if you don’t take care of itemizing properly.