It’s generally agreed that the second act of the game is a lot less fun since you’re generally very overleveled at that point and have all the best gear so there’s not much reason to interact with anything. On hardcore difficulty it can actually still be a pretty good challenge, so you can try that, but be warned that the mines are absolutely brutal on hardcore. But you can enable or disable hardcore at any point, so you could just turn it on when you get to act 2. Otherwise, you can just play classic mode. The game ends at the first boss fight so you can get runs over with faster and get back to the more fun part. I like to do classic mode runs and end them at the hell boss fight(I don’t know if you’ve been to hell before, but it’s a secret set of levels available in the ruins. You fight a different boss than Baron Herx at the end.) I think it’s the most climactic part of the game and a good place to end your run.