The logline of Helldivers 2 is that a third-person shooter hasn't been this satisfying to play since Metal Gear Solid V. The things it does right sound simple, like your ability to dive to the ground and aim in any direction from a prone state, but their integration and the smoothness of how it all comes together is anything but common even in big titles in the genre. It's a level of polish that should be commonplace and rarely is.

All the way up to release I was skeptical of this game. I mean, how could the series survive a transition from top-down to high budget third-person shooting? Could a team the size of Arrowhead pull it off?

Well, they did. I've played a lot of third-person shooters and this is, on a moment to moment basis, one of the best feeling ones I've played.

All that needs to be said about how good this feels is that even when the servers were broken as shit my friends and I kept trying to play every day. No matter how long the queue was, it was worth it to get in and play. It's that good.

I've been distracted from it by Dragon's Dogma 2, but I've dumped 70 hours into this thing so far. I'll be back for more.