Not only is this expansion objectively bad in every single aspect but it also made me re-evaluate my opinion on the game as a whole which is overall quite negative. If you don't want to read paragraphs after paragraphs of me going over all the flaws and the bafflingly stupid design choices Capcom took with this one just know that
𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝟏𝟎% 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝟏 𝐨𝐫 𝟐 𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬/𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐢𝐧 + 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞

I usually go into games with a negative preconceived notion but this time around it was the exact opposite. In fact, I was excited for all the additional content which is somehow even longer than base game only to be hammered with disappointment after disappointment after the end of every single co-op session with a friend. My distaste stems from the accumulation of plethora of different reasons and I'll try to go somewhat in depth as to why I think MHW+Iceborne was the worst gaming experience I've had in recent times

-Recycled Fights/Content-
Right off the bat after hunting like 2 new monsters you're back to fighting the same things you've already killed a gazillion times in base game but now its their "subspecies" variant, which is really just a glorified word for reskins with little to no new addition to their movesets. This game has a serious reskin problem, to the point it can downright kill the motivation required to actually make progress. This is one of the main contributing factor as to why I called the game artificially bloated since even the newer monsters get recycled at one point or another. Also for a massive expansion all we got was only one new area which didn't even get properly utilized with another area which is just so bafflingly lazy to me, it's literally all the previous areas you fought the monsters in but now mashed into one. Like it's so obvious that Capcom became complacent to the point they can just reuse not just the monsters but even the areas and the troglodyte fandom will just eat it all up and praise it like it's a masterpiece which I can assure you it's not

-Weapon Tree System-
The way the weapon tree system works is straight up incompetent, like there's no justifying as to why I should have to go and farm base game monsters again for materials to get the specific weapon I want. Doesn't that like defeat the whole purpose of the defender weapons the base game introduced to get most people to speed up their progress? At least in the base game you could stick to one tree and progressively get weapons with somewhat better stats but in Iceborne if the tree you worked towards in the base game didn't reward you with a decent enough weapon in iceborne you'll have to go do another entire tree which is unbelievably tedious to do everytime you want to switch to a different build. The whole system is at such a disconnect with the idea of fun it feels like I'm borderline working a 9-5 job I hate

-Lengthy Hunts-
Due to the introduction of new mechanics like the clutch claw and wall bangs the monsters have super inflated hp which makes the fights incredibly long. I was never a fan of how long the fights lasted in the base game anyway but in Iceborne they take it to a whole another level, it's straight up endurance torture. The fact that a single monster fight can last up to 30-40 minutes long in and of itself is horrible by design. I know you can shorten the time by optimizing the damage with the most meta build and by constantly abusing the clutch claw but the hunts will always last gruesomely long on your first time hunting a monster with no prior knowledge about their moveset. The Barioth and the Shrieking Legiana fights are prime examples of that

-Endgame is way too grindy-
The entire gimmick behind Guiding Lands only exists to further inflate an already artificially bloated game to the point it becomes genuinely frustrating to play. Whoever came up with the idea of gating new monsters behind region levels should be fired from the development team immediately. This quite literally almost killed my interest to continue the game any further for almost an entire month but I decided to just skip the Guiding Lands all together with a very handy tool called cheat engine, there's no way I'm going to waste hundreds of hours of my life grinding away the same monsters in reused areas from the base game just because I want a slightly better set or a better weapon. Monster Hunter fans might cope for it but I'm not stooping so low to the point I'd waste away my whole life grinding in a lazy game mode which was basically just scrapped together from recycling everything

-Borderline gacha game/terrible droprates-
It ties in with the previous point quite flawlessly. In the endgame you're forced to grind materials that have ridiculously low droprates and to compensate for the low droprates the devs added in a mode which literally makes you play a gacha for items and upgrade materials that aren't easy to come by. And the rare materials aren't something you can just ignore, oh no they're mandatory if you want your weapon to do decent enough damage otherwise you can enjoy your 50 minutes long hunts

These were all Iceborne specific gripes but now I'll talk about some that applies for World and the series as a whole
1. Combat is a janky mess and this is coming from someone who solo'd some of the toughest fights in Iceborne's endgame like Alatreon and Fatalis with clocking in almost 200 hours into the game, never once I thought the combat was decent or even okay at best. It's an unresponsive mess which makes Souls combat seem like a work of art in comparison
2. Majority of the fights are terribly designed with little to no thought put into how they'd fair against the game's core combat which is clunky as hell + Capcom's idea of making a fight harder is by giving the monsters a bunch of annoying status effects which artificially amps up the "difficulty", I put difficulty in quotation because nothing in this game is truly difficult, literally anything and everything can be trivialized if you just get a build that counters the specific status effects
3. Chasing a monster around a horribly designed map for 10 minutes when they run away is a complete utter waste of time, so is gathering tracks for them to even show up. It's okay like the first 3-5 times but you have to do this tedious crap every single time you start a quest and that is not fun in the slightest
4. Even the cutscenes are always the same. Like they ALWAYS follow the same pattern, first we're shown a monster we've already hunted and then a new one pops up and beats the ever living shit out of it as if it's supposed to be intimidating or something. Please try and be creative in the way you introduce a monster for once
5. Switch-Axe is quite literally the only weapon I fancy out of the plethora of different choices you have here, everything else puts me to sleep

I went into Monster Hunter World with the expectation of fighting monsters with the weapons of my choice and having fun in the process but what I got was a literal grindfest that doesn't seem to want the players to extract any enjoyment out of itself. MHW+Iceborne is downright the worst game I've played this entire year