I completed the story in my second playthrough on Level 38. Are you playing on Normal? If that is too hard for you, switch to Easy. I almost spent my entire time on Easy because it really does not matter, except for one trophy. And ha, ha. For one dungeon I went like 2/3 of the way through on Normal without even noticing but when it became harder for me to proceed I just wondered that it was actually on Normal for me and I forgot to change. But in all seriousness, switch to Easy if you are on Normal. This has nothing to do with "being hardcore", if you have no personal preference you can end it on that mode as well.