I personally think that Last Epoch sits between overwhelming PoE and watered Down D3.
I would compare Last Epoch with Grim Dawn. It has ALOT of Depth, while being pretty forgiving, especially for beginners (but there are some hardcore choices like SSF, Hardcore and Machosim Mode(more damge taken)
There are currently alot of features not present, but they will come. One of the similar things to PoE that will come(but is not ingame yet) is a Trading Place (Bazaar) which will be like an auction house for gear, which is LE’s take on trading,. pretty similar to PoE’s trading.
There are alot more smaller Details but i wouldn’t call it a knockoff.
Here you can see the dev forecast which includes some infos about coming features