it's a great pve game and it becomes quite addictive once you begin to understand the complexity and variety of builds
on the downside, it's basically a single-player online game with cancerous trading and party play ^^
for a first character, go for an easy-to-understand build like totems, summoner, archer, or caster of any kind (arc feels good and is very much like chain lightning in d2, for instance). a lot of guides on poe official forum have "beginner-friendly" in their title, start looking over there