I fell for the 'Eye Candy' a bunch of times, and we all know if you fall for the advertisement propaganda you will spend a TON of money! I sure did!
Once you figure out YOUR application, and stick to the list, you will find you can have a VERY good optic for a reasonable price...
Everything on the list I wrote above I've seen cause a missed shot, or I missed the shot myself.
From lighted reticles so bright you can't see the target behind it in low light, to having the magnification ('Zoom') cranked up and NOT realizing the built in range estimation didn't scale with the magnification, to cranking on elevation knob while the near record setting rack walks into the trees...
I recently had a Nikon .223 that had a bullet drop compensator that a good shooter & friend told me was dead on... Apparently not. I had just zeroed the optic but not tried the bullet drop compensator, and completely missed a coyote at 300 yards, not even close...
Turns out my loads were very accurate, but not up to the velocity the optic was graduated for even at 300 yds.
My loads aren't cooking fast enough to match the drop on the compensator graduations so it's not even close.
I missed a shot on a brush monster whitetail, about 500 yds out, had the optic cranked up way too far in magnification. Had it fine with field glasses, couldn't find it at 20x magnification in the brush with such a small field of view. Like trying to find it while getting a close up view of every leaf & grass blade as it slipped off through the brush.
I wouldn't have screwed that shot up with a 6x or 8x or even a 10x. That sucker was so big I might have wasted money at the taxidermy shop for the first time in my life...
Some years back, I took a hunting trip to Alaska, took an off the shelf .300 Win Mag, 10x Leupold and filled both wolf & bear tags, while half the people at the same guide lodge got nothing.
The only reason I went with 10x is because when I started out in the Marine Corps 10x is what everyone used, and in Alaska the light is 'Funny', (angle of sun in relationship to the earth).
The guys with a dozen sets of compound lenses complained about not being able to see, while my fixed 10x did a great job for me, and it didn't cost 1/4 of what the guy with the top end Zeiss was bragging about, and he left empty handed...
(Who wears a $100,000 watch and drinks $800 bottles of wine on a back country hunt & brags about it?... The guy that should have drank less wine and goes home with pictures of other people's kills, that's who!)
I say these things from experience. Your experience might be different, but having an expensive or difficult hunt go completely wrong because the optic (or mounts/rings) go wrong really sucks,
Or because the optic is too busy to easily be used when that big buck is ambling towards trees or rocks that ruin your shot.
Consider something else,
From age 17 to about 50 I was a competition shooter. 16 years in the Marines, civilian matches after that. I still shoot around 20,000 rounds a year, so I didn't miss very often.
When I do miss, I do a failure analysis...
When game is out of range, or in the margins of my ability, the ability of the rifle or optic, I didn't take the shot. Just not fair to the game or other hunters when the shot will be marginal...
Missed shots are when I screw up and don't get the round sent, or when it's an outright miss of the target. (I track ANYTHING that might be a wounded animal, which is why my shots are getting shorter as I age, if I'm not confident I can knock it down, I simply don't take the shot because I don't want to track it for miles...)
These are hard learned lessons, so if they don't apply to your situation, then simply ignore.
It's something to think about for guys starting out, and for folks confused on what this or that 'Option' in optics are for & how they are applied/function.