Not "grindy" (oh hell it is!), but "slow". Exactly that meaning. High level progress expeditions in groups take almost an hour to complete. IF you complete it and do not stamble on a bug of some sort, like crashing, lagging and dying because of it, bosses bugging, throwing you from the map etc. In soloplay a 3-map expedition takes almost half an hour. To craft an item you have to have 12k points after completing and that is two maps at least. If you dont have enough gold income to build main hall upgrades - that is three maps. Each one takes from 5 to 10 minutes, that is just too long. The whole 3-maps progress run should take 15 minutes maximum via the soloplay and 30 minutes via group play. 10 / 20 minutes for the fastrun 3-map run. First map should be the longest by completing time, second one is in the middle, and the third one should be the fastest. This way 1-map runs will not become a 2 minutes Cirque du Soleil and the player will not be tired on the third floor from all that trashkilling on previous floors. Oh, the third floor should ofcourse be the hardest one! But also the fastest one.

Now the highly subjective part.

The game itself feels "clunky", when you constantly have to stop to buff your ass. That brakes the flow of the gameplay. Buffs should be castable while moving and casting another spells / abilities. Every aRPG or H&S game has it that way. This one, sadly, isn't. Spell casting animation stun should be almost nonexistent, instead right now it is close to 0.25 second.