I hunt where you often have to look into deep shadows on the edge of forest and into the bottom of canyons at dawn and dusk and I've found the limits of several scopes are pretty disappointing. An older Leupold 3-9 I had on a rifle wasn't able to pick up a big four point I spotted in a deep shadow with my binos right at dusk. I put down the binos and brought up my rifle and I couldn't see the deer at all... I've had similar instances with other scopes also which led me to buying better scopes for this purpose. Some turned out to be better than others. The Bausch & Lomb and later Bushnell Elites have been some of my favorite scopes for this . I'm way too cheap to spend the big bucks on some of the scopes guys on this site talk about often like Swarovski, Night Force, and the Leupold VX5, VX6, etc... so I can't speak to them . About my limit on scopes has always been in the $700 range and they have worked fine for me in just about all conditions.
One thing I look for in scopes that maybe not all look for is- living in Oregon it rains a lot and snows often during elk season and occasionally during deer season. I look for a scope with good coatings, but I especially look for scope that will survive getting drenched and still working like it is supposed to. The Rainguard coatings that the Bushnell Elite scopes use works great to keep the lenses clear in this regard in my experience and they don't leak . Lesser scopes haven't always been reliable in this regard.
