New player here. GoG had Grim Dawn on sale, so I thought I would pick it up. At first I was enjoying the game. However, 20 levels in, I am bored silly. You have to play on normal difficulty first, so thats where I am at. I literally have one ability, Forcewave, which I can cast 50 times in a row before running out of energy. It literally one shots every mob in a line in front of me. Boss mobs might take many hits from the ability, but there is no chance of dying. I saw there is a veteran mode, so I enabled that. Now I one shot even more mobs at once. Its kinda silly. Does the difficulty ramp up at all?
if Veteran doesn’t work could download GDdefiler or GDstash and enable Elite or Ultimate straight off for your character then try either of those and see if it does the trick for you challenge wise
keep in mind it’s an ARPG and you’re supposed to mow down hordes of (trash) enemies - and if you’re only in act 1/haven’t defeated Warden yet you’re still basically just in the “tutorial” area, Veteran mode might amp areas up a little bit later, tho you can still have an easy time zerging through it depending on your build/gear etc (specially trash mobs since they are cannon fodder)
I just killed the Warden and I have to say that was the easiest boss battle so far. With the Warden, I just stood there and took out his first form in few seconds with the one and only ability I have. Then he transformed and I did the same thing. I had to run around the table twice, as I was waiting for the health pot to come of of cool down. I am guessing it took about 2 minutes total. Probably less. At least with some of the shrine bosses, there can be multiple bosses that hit hard and mobs that put down AoE. With some of those I had to sometimes get out of the AoE.
The game has potential, but I am a little disappointed. I have literally gone through the entire Act 1 with only one ability which I can endlessly spam and 1 shot most mobs. A few might take 2 or 3. However, since I literally can spam it 50x in a row and get maybe 3 off in 1 second, I almost never get hit by anything. Not that getting hit by anything does much damage. I never autoattack anything, as their is no need. The skill bar is numbered 1-0 and they have been empty the entire game. All I do is right click for Forcewave. Well, thats not entirely true. I briefly had an item that gave me an ability. I put that as 1, but never used it. Then I replaced the item.
I might try the programs you mentioned if Act 2 isnt any harder.
Forcewave is one of the easiest ways to level up in the game.
If you’re not enjoying it then have a look at these and see if anything is more appealing.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that certain abilities start off insanely strong, but tend to fall off at endgame unless you have dedicated gear for them. Forcewave is one of those. 
Others include Olexra’s Flash Freeze (arcanist) and Word of Pain (inquisitor) - you will see many beginner guides recommend using those skills early on to level, then speccing out later.
Stick it out. The campaign itself tends to be rather easy - especially the base campaign vs. the expansions - and also, I mean, Act 1 is basically “the tutorial act”. I promise you there is much more challenging content ahead outside of the campaign… namely the Crucible, the Shattered Realm, and the superbosses the game has.
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If u have any familiarity with this game type ie ARPG then play veteran from the beginning when in normal, otherwise not very challenging as u say. I played a purifier first time in veteran and Kreig killed me few times. Pit bosses in act 2 can also be very tough
OK, Ill stick it out. I didnt read any guides when I started playing. I guess I just got “lucky” picking Soldier and Forcewave. It just reminded me of my favorite D3 build, Whirlwind Barbarian.
if you wanted actual whirlwind we have that in Eye of Reckoning in Oathkeeper skill tree (requires Forgotten Gods)
This thread raises an important issue. I also hoped for difficulty to be higher, especially at the beginning. I still clearly remember how long it took me to finish Diablo 2.
That’s actually pretty long for Forcewave leveling. It usually takes me 30 to 40 seconds to kill him with Forcewave.
The thing with Forcewave is that starts out overpowered in the early game due to enemies not having the health to take hits from it, but halfway through it starts to peter out because enemies start to get much beefier. Doesn’t help that Forcewave is AoE focused and it has rather poor single target.
The problem isnt with the difficulty itself,its with how some abilities scale early game,stuff like forcewave are insanely more broken at the start than other abilities,like if you try to go cadence and get some WPS on veteran you are very weak,also some skils have strong early Mi’s to even further boost an already strong ability
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In the beginning, a game like Grim Dawn is unbalanced. Because you can maximize area damage skill while not needing survival stats.
But I can assure you that if you don’t use wisely your attributes points and your devotions points, at end game, your character can become useless. (Note: can reset with potions )
Also, you will really need a good build in the end.
For me, Grim Dawn’s end game is building good builds.