I've put off reviewing this game for a long time, but the 10k hours mark feels like a good place to finally review it.

Destiny 2 is very much like an abusive relationship that you can never seem to leave. The gunplay, abilities, and power fantasy are all there, but after so many years, the game's flaws and antiquated systems, and Bungie's overall mismanagement of the game, are showing, and very painfully so.

The game has very many flawed and antiquated systems that Bungie just refuses to fix or update (like the buff and debuff tray - there's not enough space to display everything going on, so some buffs and debuffs can be hidden, making objective and ability management more difficult), and is missing some very basic features (such as a ping system). Bungie doesn't add or fix anything until the game is bleeding players and they're forced to fix things. Meanwhile, while being completely lazy and incompetent, they have the audacity to charge more and more to play the game, while delivering less and less content, and the content they DO deliver is lower quality and riddled with bugs.

The game is in a terrible state right now. Player population is at an all-time low at the time of this review. There are so many bugs that several major parts of the game are literally completely unplayable. The servers and connections are very bad, which causes constant lag. Gambit has been languishing for years. PvP is riddled with cheaters and ximmers, and Bungie won't do anything about them, nor will they do anything about the miserable, unbalanced meta we've been in for 5 months now. We had a dedicated PvP team for a few months, and they did great work with crucible, but then they all got laid off and now we're back to PvP being dead. The new seasonal model is terrible - extremely boring with very little content. The new seasonal activity isn't even its own activity - it's just a refresh of an existing free activity.

I can't in good faith recommend this game in its current state. Numerous, horrendous bugs plague the game. The price point to get into the game is too high, especially for how little content you get, and how low quality most of it is. The game is poorly optimized and the servers are dying. Lots of the new content in the game gets removed after a year. Bungie takes months, or even years, to issue various fixes/revamps for bugs and in-game systems, and takes just as long to balance egregious abilities and weapons. At its core, the game is good, but Bungie has unfortunately ran it into the ground with their horrific mismanagement of it and the people working on it.

"Well if the game is so bad, why do you have 10k hours in it?"
About half of those hours are spent AFK - I used the game as a sort of "social hub" for a while, where I'd lurk online in case anyone wanted to message me to do something. I "only" have 5,000 hours of actual play time over the span of 5 years. I only play the game still for two reasons:
1. I'm very good at it. I don't want to leave a game I'm very good at and start over somewhere else. I know that's a silly reason, but it's hard to let go of the game because of it.
2. My friends and partners still play the game, so it's a big way for me to spend time with them.

I've put off reviewing this game for a long time, but the 10k hours mark feels like a good place to finally review it. Destiny 2 is very much like an abusive relationship that you can never seem to leave. The gunplay, abilities, and power fantasy are all there, but after so many years, the game's flaws and antiquated systems, and Bungie's overall mismanagement of the game, are showing, and very painfully so. The game has very many flawed and antiquated systems that Bungie just refuses to fix or update (like the buff and debuff tray - there's not enough space to display everything going on, so some buffs and debuffs can be hidden, making objective and ability management more difficult), and is missing some very basic features (such as a ping system). Bungie doesn't add or fix anything until the game is bleeding players and they're forced to fix things. Meanwhile, while being completely lazy and incompetent, they have the audacity to charge more and more to play the game, while delivering less and less content, and the content they DO deliver is lower quality and riddled with bugs. The game is in a terrible state right now. Player population is at an all-time low at the time of this review. There are so many bugs that several major parts of the game are literally completely unplayable. The servers and connections are very bad, which causes constant lag. Gambit has been languishing for years. PvP is riddled with cheaters and ximmers, and Bungie won't do anything about them, nor will they do anything about the miserable, unbalanced meta we've been in for 5 months now. We had a dedicated PvP team for a few months, and they did great work with crucible, but then they all got laid off and now we're back to PvP being dead. The new seasonal model is terrible - extremely boring with very little content. The new seasonal activity isn't even its own activity - it's just a refresh of an existing free activity. I can't in good faith recommend this game in its current state. Numerous, horrendous bugs plague the game. The price point to get into the game is too high, especially for how little content you get, and how low quality most of it is. The game is poorly optimized and the servers are dying. Lots of the new content in the game gets removed after a year. Bungie takes months, or even years, to issue various fixes/revamps for bugs and in-game systems, and takes just as long to balance egregious abilities and weapons. At its core, the game is good, but Bungie has unfortunately ran it into the ground with their horrific mismanagement of it and the people working on it. "Well if the game is so bad, why do you have 10k hours in it?" About half of those hours are spent AFK - I used the game as a sort of "social hub" for a while, where I'd lurk online in case anyone wanted to message me to do something. I "only" have 5,000 hours of actual play time over the span of 5 years. I only play the game still for two reasons: 1. I'm very good at it. I don't want to leave a game I'm very good at and start over somewhere else. I know that's a silly reason, but it's hard to let go of the game because of it. 2. My friends and partners still play the game, so it's a big way for me to spend time with them.