Like a lot of roguelikes, it's more about throwing yourself up against the wall over and over to unlock things for the next run. I don't mind that aspect depending on just how grindy said roguelike is gonna be; if it's gonna be 20+ hours before I feel like I can do a run without just dropping dead for being the tiniest bit curious I get a little frustrated at the feeling my time is not being respected.
Hero Corruption 2 is kind of in the middle, there are moments where I feel the game has very good progression and balance then there are moments I wonder what the dev was thinking with such and such minigame or X encounter. For the most part, I have a pretty positive feeling about the game as a whole and the mod just adds in so much QoL that I could never go back to vanilla.