Loot wise, the game is not rewarding early on

Getting drops and using those drops to equip and/or craft solutions to challenging content is the main draw of an ARPG. Right now the game punishes and demands constant attention, which is fine if that is the direction they are going. However, they need to reward that level of effort and attention. Right now it does not.

It's honestly hard to get past the first 8 to 10 hours of the campaign. You eventually look at your empty stash tabs, and garbage equipped gear, and say "what did I go through all that for?"

its even worse in maps...

Even worse. I actually enjoy the game itself, and balancing will get better and better. However, if the drops (either currency or items or both) don't improve, then how can you possibly justify the time spend in game?

I could never get by the 1st act final boss. Never could find, buy, or craft the gear to beat him.

Guys, this game has some of the best vendor items and gambling rewards in any ARPG and the gear scales when you play multiplayer. The trading feature on the website can often net you passable gear to start getting into mid range maps for an exalted orb or two.

Plenty of ways past these issues.

For the person stuck on the act1 boss... stack cold resist and just be careful. When he goes to the fog/wind mode, time his rushes. 4-5 seconds per rush just roll. He takes time but he gets a lot easier with cold resist and a little time learning his attacks.

I have about 575 hrs in PoE2 between Standard and Dawn of the Hunt leagues.

In Standard, pre-Dawn of the Hunt, my Level 94 Stormcaller Lightning Deadeye Ranger is clearing T15-16 maps with minimal effort and reaping the bountiful loot it beholds through Precursor Tablets, 75% of the map uncovered and Atlas Points to pump up your chances of getting more quality of items and higher chances of obtaining higher end items through Magic Find (about 100 Rarity you're good to go to get Divines and L20 Skill Gems). So, my Ranger is pretty geared at this point which is the goal for any End Game player to maximize their characters gearing progression.

In Dawn of the Hunt, starting out with the Huntress (which is now Level 75 conducting T5 maps and just filling out the Atlas Map) still has a way to go to get up to that of my Level 94 Deadeye Ranger.

I noticed the gearing and looting in Dawn of the Hunt content is night and day!! I was Level 43 still using a Level 28 Spear even though I was scouring every Spear piece from Vendors to include Gambling for items and trying to upgrade them via crafting mats. I was obtaining MORE Augmentation and Transmutation Orbs than Regal Orbs and Exalted Orbs to further enhance my gear and progress my character through upgrade. It was extremely difficult obtaining Exalted Orbs from Act 1-3 Normal/Cruel combined. I would honestly say buy the time I ended Act 3 Cruel, I've obtained a total of 10 Exalted Orbs. 10!!. I even conducted an experiment in Act 3 Cruel at "Apex of Filth" I cleared the ENTIRE area to include every Elite and the Queen of Filth. Not a SINGLE Exalted Orb dropped from either the Elites or the boss herself. How??? Bad RNG I guess. I was super frustrating by the time I was ending Act 3 Cruel, all of my gear was around Level 44-45 with once piece at Level 52 and my character was Level 67 going into End Game. And yes, I'm very aware HOW to gear progress my character, with approximately 575 hrs in, I'm pretty sure how gearing works. However, I was gambling and vendoring MORE to upgrade my character than actually finding RAW gear dropped by mobs that were an upgrade.

Majority of the time, I salvaged or vendored all of my loot because I barely had any upgrades. I did have about 8 "prospect" pieces of gear for upgrade in my inventory, I could not upgrade them past Regal Orb (up to 3 mod with Regal) because I didn't loot enough Exalted Orbs to upgrade them.

Exalted Orbs in PoE2 since the Dawn of the Hunt seems very scarce during the campaign. Sure, players want to get through the campaign to get to End Game where the "real" gearing progression starts, however, by the time you're complete with Act 3 Cruel, your character should be well geared for Tier 1-3 entry Waystones. Even still with that, the possibility of Exalted Orbs dropping for you to upgrade your current or actually looting RAW upgrades to replace your Level 65+ gear is slim as well. Most players are still wearing gear that are 10 or 15 levels BELOW the players level because the gearing system does not keep up with player progression unless you're in End Game. Trying to balance your gear progression from Level 1 through Level ~60-65 is very frustrating. Not all crafting mats are dropping at a steads rate/flow for players to utilize to upgrade current gear rather players need to Currency Exchange in Cruel to obtain crafting mats rather them dropping at a normal rate.

The Poe 2 campaign is not the right experience for you to form an opinion about anything. Playing from scratch is indeed difficult, but the important thing is to keep going.

Well no. If a game experience is not good, then the answer is not to keep going. I have about 100 hours in this game so far, between all the patches, and the loot experience has not changed at all.

Going to a website or cheesing vendors is not related to gameplay experience, and is a horrible substitute. Video games need to be fun and they need to reward your effort.

The negative responses (and the reviews) corroborate this. It's OK to require build up in order to handle later content. However, there needs to be reasonable methods to do this.