i'm playing mostly tankish melees, so ghoul is my favorite.
his first racial passive is about saving life in difficult situations (boss can't hurt you in one hit more than 50% of your life)
aoe heal+damage+reducing duration of negative effects is helps alot. 25% exp penalty isn't huge, like skelly have.
was my first attempt as this class, also i was wrong about spending category points.
even this armor wasn't used properly (i was able to slow myself and get more resistance to damage)
so my gameplay here is not about judging poor ghouls
It's not that Ghoul is completely unusuable, but really any other race would be better if you have the exact same build and items on them. I have a win with a Lich Necromancer with that only died in Farportals but Lich is still horrible. Anyway that's pretty impressive for your first time playing that class, congrats.
My wiki page, which contains a guide and resource compilation and class tier list.