Surprisingly, melee and ranged work equally well (in endgame melee may even have a slight edge) which is not common because usually melee characters get the short end of the stick in ARPGs. While some skills really require special items to be good, most do the work on their own. There's a lot to choose from in six main classes - Soldier, Occultist, Shaman, Demolitionist, Nightblade and Arcanist - you can combine any two. The hack'n'slash parts feel good with hits and spells having an impact (I love the Blitz skill). You can repeat this campaign in Elite and Ultimate difficulties, with Elite feeling redundant once you have both story DLCs. There are also options to influence your stance with the various factions, some of which compete, so your choices shape the story a bit. And then you even meet some of these yourself. The world building and lore is really great, a ton of codex entries to read that flesh out the people and events in it. Get that achievement, grind that level, reach that devotion shrine, etc. The best way is to have your own goals of what you want to do, ideally each session. This campaign is rather lengthy with many optional areas you can 'get lost' in so the whole process can become grindy/boring. However, for casual play it can turn off many players before they beat the main campaign on Normal. In this regard, Grim Dawn is a game that is very rewarding if you are dedicated to it - knowing the map layouts, looking up items on wiki/build sites, etc.

I love action RPGs ever since Diablo 2 days and so I'm always looking for something that would scratch that part of my brain. imbalance between some skills and mechanics

Grim dawn update 1.0.7.1 save editor