Fun gameplay loop, gorgeous artwork, great style, the vibes - excellent. I just wish there was a bit...more? Like, the main story felt complete, the game didn't feel too short, there was enough to explore, I just wish there was more to do i guess. More side quests or more interaction with the characters and locations, idk. maybe i just wanted a justification to play the game more.

all the different designs for the aberrant fish was probably the best part of the game tho, they're all great and i love my weird mutant fish so much

TL;DR - Helldivers 2 is damn good, but it has some light issues that still need ironing out.

Incredibly fun and definitely worth $40 - hell I've put 50 hours into it in the few weeks since launch - but even after a solution to the server issues, it's definitely still in need of a few patches.

Performance issues on PC are rampant despite being miles above recommended specs (this is not a problem on PS5), armor ratings don't function properly (the devs have acknowledged this at least), and the balance is all sorts of fucked on the higher difficulties to the point of weapon variety being completely dead on difficulties 7 through 9. At least in a random queue, you'd be lucky to see someone not running auto shotgun/shield gen pack/railgun/500kg or railcannon strike/mortar or autocannon sentry and not get booted out of the game instantly. And honestly, I can't blame some of the meta people on this one - outside of the Railgun and the Anti-Tank/Autocannon, nothing can deal with heavilly armored enemies consistently due to lacking armor damage on most weapons or even some orbitals. A LOT of those tanky fuckers spawn on higher difficulties. You can't take down 4-5 Bile Titans or Hulks + the absolute shitstorm of fodder enemies around them with a Guard Dog and an Anti-Materiel Rifle. Kicking people for running different loadouts I feel is a bit extreme, though that's a matter of community rather than a fault of the game.

I think a lot of weapons just need flat buffs to their penetration or damage, some even need more mags. While it isn't impossible to work outside of the meta on higher difficulties, the game will take every opportunity to beat you over the head with a Bug Breach or Bot Drop if you can't kill - or avoid - scouting squads or stationed enemies in your way fast enough on the higher difficulties. You will eventually run out of ammo, you will eventually mistime a dive and get rammed into a wall by a Charger, there are times where your teammates cannot help you from the 2 Hulks flaming you to death that spawned from a Bot Drop unless they can snipe it with a Railgun.

To compliment the game however, fuck it's so much fun when in it's normal bounds. I genuinely haven't gotten invested into a 4 player co-op shooter like this in years with mechanics this simple but all incredibly cohesive. Takes me back to L4D2 era, except with bugs and bots rather than zombies. (Just like L4D2, however, it is incredibly easy to burnout on.) When playing on medium difficulties at least (4-6), you can see a lot of variety able to shine through in playstyles. Tanky (as tanky as you can get with armor being broken) grenade launchers with a bottomless clip thanks to supply packs, people with an all laser loadout, featherweight dodge-build adjacent flamethrowers that wipe out swarms of fodder, people who act as medics and have a million stims, etc. I saw a guy running exclusively Eagle airstrikes who obliterated anything in sight pretty much instantly, including us sometimes.

I also love the Stratagem system. Having combos to punch in, delivery times and cooldowns to access your most powerful bug and bot deleting tools is genius against the running clock. Having not only to manage normal resources like ammo and objectives but also time hits a sweetspot in my brain.

And to compliment it even further, the super credits system is the first "premium currency" system in the past like, 10+ years to not feel like a complete scam because you can get any super credits for free and at an actually reasonable pace. I got like 1.5k within 30 hours, enough to buy the the second warbond but also a few armor sets. You can pay for them, too, but the max is $20, not $80 or $100 like a lot of games try to pull. The average armor set from the "super store" is worth $2, max. Jaw was completely on the floor when I realized this. It is the bare minimum, yes, but it's lightyears ahead of some games with their $40 car skins. The warbonds/the "battle pass", if you can even call it that since it's more like a progression tree where you cash in completed missions for new things rather than a traditional battle pass where you grind specific challenges out, will never expire as far as I'm aware too - FOMO completely out of the picture.

Great game. But definitely needs a few tune ups to get past launch pains - mostly, a lot of weapons just need outright buffs and armor needs fixed. And please god fix the performance if at all possible.

To start off I’ll just say 🧎🏾‍♀️🥲🥺😖😫😭

But for real I enjoyed this game a lot; there’s definitely some flaws in this game when it comes to some gameplay mechanics and pacing sometimessss but overall I enjoyed my time with this.

I think my fav thing about this was the voice acting, it was actually CRAZY and Charlotte McBurney specifically deserved some awards and recognition for her performance as Amicia. The plot was pretty good too, it starts off good and gets a little weaker in the middle but it comes back pretty strong during the end.

Amicia and Hugo’s bond just makes the plot sooo much more emotionally charged and it really drives the story on so well. Ive also seen some ppl criticizes certain character actions but I feel like a lot of that stuff made sense when considering everything lol..

But yeah I would prob give this a 7/10