I recently got past the first dungeon, and I'm finding that the difficulty curve is ramping up significantly. I went from no deaths, rarely taking damage, to barely hanging on through a lot of individual runs. I think the expectation is depending on your level of ability you'll plow through a portion of the game and then get hard-stopped at which point doing the cult-raising thing becomes a way bigger part of your gameplay, and you start cycling or going back through old dungeons to work up materials, followers, and bonuses.
I racked up a couple of deaths in a row now, but I put that more off to beign tired today (back to work after a week off, and my sleep schedule was less then aligned).
Also Gauntlets are awful and I won't be convinced otherwise, and vampiric weapons don't work.
I do wonder if the honeymoon period ends and good items/cards become fewer and farther between (like I already saw (but avoided buying) the +damage during day tarot card, when its much more productive to go crusading at night when your followers aren't producing resources/building for you to be doing things in town)