I miss the Satchel Charges, Robots, Tanks, and Thumper from the first. It seems like they should have taken a longer look at why the first one was so loved. Helldivers 2 feels like it's missing things from Helldivers 1.

The monetization is horrible they have a battle/season pass that gives you armor(that has a passive tied to it which you can get in free armors) and Primary Variants(slightly different look and paint with a different type of "ammo" that increases armor pen or give you incendiary rounds) not all variants are an upgrade... Also boosts which are a buff you can take that affects the whole team. Why is that in the paid pass?!

They should have let us unlock the base weapons and then let us modify them to our liking a la COD/BF or any modern shooter. Then give the armor a slot in which you can put whatever armor perk you want into it that also gives you the armor stats that go with it. That would let us slot what we want in it and it lets us run whatever armor we want. That way you can make the monetization weapon skins and different armors since the armor would be purely cosmetic. And weapon variants wouldn't be locked behind a paywall.

That being said you can get the paid currency in game. You can find it randomly in the mission and all you need is 1000 to unlock it. The time to unlock it will vary since it depend on how much you play and how often you an get lucky enough to find the super credits in a mission. You can also get a few from the free War Bond to help out. So there is a method for the people who don't want to spend money on the pass to unlock those items it just takes some time.

The stratagem "Upgrades"(not really upgrades just passive buffs like less cooldown or faster deploy time) cost waaaay to much. I would understand if once you picked up the samples which is the currency you need to buy the upgrades was easier to find and would not be dropped when you died. In harder difficulties it makes it harder to keep your samples which you already have very little time to find since it requires you to check every point of interest on the map which isn't ideal. You get great bonus exp for completing the main mission fast then extracting fast. So you are incentivized to not waste time, You will probably only extract half the samples that are available if you are with a decent team. The later upgrades require samples only found in the higher difficulties sooooo yeah... fun times... That honestly just seems like it was made for artificial play time. Just to make the grind last longer than it should.

That being said the gameplay loop is fun. Helldivers 2 does a good job of making the core of the game a great time be it with friends or random. Dropping into a map to squash some bugs or kill some robots if just fun the gunplay feels great, the sound design is awesome, and the visuals are amazing. The way explosions look from as gun run from a futuristic A-10 or a barrage from an orbital strike looks amazing and never gets old.

The game is a good time and it's worth the $40 price tag. Not so sure about the $60 unless you are a superfan. I originally didn't recommend the game and gave it a thumbs down but I feel that was because I was comparing it too much to the original. After playing the game for longer and reaching Lv20 the game has won me over since the gameplay is what has gripped my attention. I just wish they would give the primary weapons another look over since in higher difficulties some of them just feel useless and I feel that is one thing Helldivers 1 did very well. They let you upgrade the primary weapons so they could scale into the higher difficulties improving on the base weapon and not making them lose stats or magazine size just because of a little more armor pen. The trade off isn't really worth it on some of the primary weapons.

tl;dr: The game is worth $40 easily and not so much $60. Their monetization is very crappy with them locking primary weapon variants, Squad buffs, secondaries, and armor behind a paywall. You can buy the War Bond(battle/season pass) by finding their paid currency super credits in missions but it will take a lot of grinding. Overall the gameplay is fun so it's worth the $40 entry price.

I miss the Satchel Charges, Robots, Tanks, and Thumper from the first. It seems like they should have taken a longer look at why the first one was so loved. Helldivers 2 feels like it's missing things from Helldivers 1. The monetization is horrible they have a battle/season pass that gives you armor(that has a passive tied to it which you can get in free armors) and Primary Variants(slightly different look and paint with a different type of "ammo" that increases armor pen or give you incendiary rounds) not all variants are an upgrade... Also boosts which are a buff you can take that affects the whole team. Why is that in the paid pass?! They should have let us unlock the base weapons and then let us modify them to our liking a la COD/BF or any modern shooter. Then give the armor a slot in which you can put whatever armor perk you want into it that also gives you the armor stats that go with it. That would let us slot what we want in it and it lets us run whatever armor we want. That way you can make the monetization weapon skins and different armors since the armor would be purely cosmetic. And weapon variants wouldn't be locked behind a paywall. That being said you can get the paid currency in game. You can find it randomly in the mission and all you need is 1000 to unlock it. The time to unlock it will vary since it depend on how much you play and how often you an get lucky enough to find the super credits in a mission. You can also get a few from the free War Bond to help out. So there is a method for the people who don't want to spend money on the pass to unlock those items it just takes some time. The stratagem "Upgrades"(not really upgrades just passive buffs like less cooldown or faster deploy time) cost waaaay to much. I would understand if once you picked up the samples which is the currency you need to buy the upgrades was easier to find and would not be dropped when you died. In harder difficulties it makes it harder to keep your samples which you already have very little time to find since it requires you to check every point of interest on the map which isn't ideal. You get great bonus exp for completing the main mission fast then extracting fast. So you are incentivized to not waste time, You will probably only extract half the samples that are available if you are with a decent team. The later upgrades require samples only found in the higher difficulties sooooo yeah... fun times... That honestly just seems like it was made for artificial play time. Just to make the grind last longer than it should. That being said the gameplay loop is fun. Helldivers 2 does a good job of making the core of the game a great time be it with friends or random. Dropping into a map to squash some bugs or kill some robots if just fun the gunplay feels great, the sound design is awesome, and the visuals are amazing. The way explosions look from as gun run from a futuristic A-10 or a barrage from an orbital strike looks amazing and never gets old. The game is a good time and it's worth the $40 price tag. Not so sure about the $60 unless you are a superfan. I originally didn't recommend the game and gave it a thumbs down but I feel that was because I was comparing it too much to the original. After playing the game for longer and reaching Lv20 the game has won me over since the gameplay is what has gripped my attention. I just wish they would give the primary weapons another look over since in higher difficulties some of them just feel useless and I feel that is one thing Helldivers 1 did very well. They let you upgrade the primary weapons so they could scale into the higher difficulties improving on the base weapon and not making them lose stats or magazine size just because of a little more armor pen. The trade off isn't really worth it on some of the primary weapons. tl;dr: The game is worth $40 easily and not so much $60. Their monetization is very crappy with them locking primary weapon variants, Squad buffs, secondaries, and armor behind a paywall. You can buy the War Bond(battle/season pass) by finding their paid currency super credits in missions but it will take a lot of grinding. Overall the gameplay is fun so it's worth the $40 entry price.