Since last writing this review I had around 2,722 hours.
I've played more hours than what is shown on steam since I would basically play this everyday from 2008 to whenever it was released on steam as a kid.

An Unreal 5 update is in the works and the team is doing their due diligence keeping everyone updated, it's still the same old comfort game I've had since forever.

There's a lot of bulk to go through and as a new player it can feel very disorienting, don't be afraid to ask other players for help and do look for a new player guild.
Since the community is relatively small, there are a lot more loyal fans to this game who are more than willing to help new players (Me being one of them, I love newbies and I try my best to ease them into this game so we can have another loyal player).

There are some downsides to this game though:
#1: The grind for end game can feel horrendous, some gear can take forever to get and players tend to sell the most sought after items for mountains of gold, the drop rates are horrendous. This is partly due to Korea not letting North America fix our drop rates to represent our population, the drop rates from what I understand aren't too bad in Korea due to there being an immensely larger population

#2: This game is 20 years old, coming out in Korea back in 2004 and NA in 2008, the amount of content reflects this and there are numerous things from over the years left behind in the wayside as they have become obsolete.
As I noted earlier, players can get lost with the extreme amount of content they'd have to digest, I'd recommend taking it slow and following the generations and Blaanid Quests in the meantime (Blaanid being the tutorial guide, giving quests that boost your first 20k levels if you complete it all)

#3: While you can play the game completely free (You can even buy VIP packages from players for gold now) it can still be "Pay 2 Win" or more "Pay 2 Progress faster" as you need a lot of gold capital or a lot of time to reach end game gear, buying the Gacha is basically gambling but can net you tens of millions if not hundreds of millions in gold with a rare enchant or highly sought after item.
Gaining an immense amount of gold for spending money in the Gacha can net you better enchants and gear a lot faster than grinding, especially for newer players when you can't or don't know the efficient ways to acquire loads of gold, so this is an example of the "Pay 2 Progress faster".

I must preface that you absolutely do not have to spend money on this game if you want to have fun, again, find a new player guild or talk to other players.
Make friends, set clear goals for yourself and don't be discouraged by how long or expensive something seemingly is, you should come into this game with the expectation of the long term commitment.

I started again after a hiatus introducing a friend to the game, with new characters we progressed to a decent level in only 7 months.

Casually playing we achieved close to end game gear in less than a year (My friend getting a Lord of Ruination staff and the respective gear for his preferred class) just by grinding, saving gold and working together.

For myself, I reached a level good enough for grinding end game on two more characters faster than the initial character thanks to my newfound experience and help from my friend that is now suited for end game content.
All this only took two years of casual play, while that may seem like a long time we had immense fun along the way and with help you can crunch into end game content very quickly.

Do I recommend this game for everyone?
No, not if you're not willing to sink a lot of time into the game and put up with a lot of the old mechanics and some of the issues the game has.

If none of what I said discouraged you then I recommend giving the game a try, you might find yourself a very long term game that you come back to occasionally and enjoy it every time you do.