A great game that has evolved over time into a great heisting simulator. It makes you think and work with your teammates more than many first person shooters on the market. If you've got a group of friends to play with then I highly recommend getting this!

*EDIT* While the above still applies, the conduct of Overkill has gotten much worse lately, introducing microtransaction skins via TF2 and CS:GO's Crate+Key system, except they also have the potential for stat boosts, during the Crimefest event, an event specifically designed for free content to be given out to the community as a thank you for continued support.

The rest of Crimefest was designed around selling the microtransactions, and trying to win players who had decided to boycott back with masks (some of which were nice, most were fairly ugly), by adding drills to unlock the safes as a drop at the end of a heist, and ported versions of First World Bank and Slaughterhouse from the first game.

Almir, one of the lead developers and the main PR guy at Overkill then hosted an AMA on the Payday subreddit, answering questions that the community had about the new system, claiming in the original post that they were willing to find middle ground in the new systems and were willing to work with the community to find something that worked. However the rest of the AMA was him repeatedly saying that nothing about the microtransactions were going to change, refusing to even consider changing the system, and just stating that "While the general sentiment here in the subreddit has been negative towards microtransactions, the numbers speak a different language. Players seem to be loving it." showing that despite the massive public backlash from not only the subreddit, but also on the steam forums and community hub for Payday 2, and the massive drop in both the Steam user review score and the Meta critic score.

At this point I was still willing to play the game, because It is still one of my favourite games of all time, and the skins weren't going to affect me as I was not going to buy the drills, and I don't mind seeing them in-game, people can like what they want after all, I'm not going to kick people just for using them like some others are.

However what changed my mind and is making me write this out and changing my review, is the way that Overkill has introduced even more boosting skins, this time with exp and money boosts despite knowing that most of the outrage was because of the stat boosts to begin with, but also the way the Completely Overkill Pack owners (I am not one) were treated with their special and unique reward from buying what amounts to essentially a $15 donation to overkill. They were given a free safe, which contains 25 possible skins, and when opened gives you a random skin of random quality. Which means there is a large potential to get a skin in a poor quality for a gun you don't even like.

The fact that people using a mod to unlock all the skins get a better deal than those who payed $15 for one skin is appalling and downright disappointing that Overkill thinks that this is ok.

If this changes down the line I will edit once more and change this review, but for now Overkill have made me want to not recommend a game I love because of shady business operation.

Edit 2: Overkill have since changed this system so that all the weapon boosts drop as regular weapon upgrades in the card drop system, and now all future safes are free to open. Overkill have listened to their community and fixed the issues that the majority of players had with the game, and now I can once more recommend this game 100%, with no hesitation. However, I will keep the original edit in, so that people may see what happened in the past, and that hopefully Overkill will not repeat their mistake in the future.

A great game that has evolved over time into a great heisting simulator. It makes you think and work with your teammates more than many first person shooters on the market. If you've got a group of friends to play with then I highly recommend getting this! *EDIT* While the above still applies, the conduct of Overkill has gotten much worse lately, introducing microtransaction skins via TF2 and CS:GO's Crate+Key system, except they also have the potential for stat boosts, during the Crimefest event, an event specifically designed for free content to be given out to the community as a thank you for continued support. The rest of Crimefest was designed around selling the microtransactions, and trying to win players who had decided to boycott back with masks (some of which were nice, most were fairly ugly), by adding drills to unlock the safes as a drop at the end of a heist, and ported versions of First World Bank and Slaughterhouse from the first game. Almir, one of the lead developers and the main PR guy at Overkill then hosted an AMA on the Payday subreddit, answering questions that the community had about the new system, claiming in the original post that they were willing to find middle ground in the new systems and were willing to work with the community to find something that worked. However the rest of the AMA was him repeatedly saying that nothing about the microtransactions were going to change, refusing to even consider changing the system, and just stating that "While the general sentiment here in the subreddit has been negative towards microtransactions, the numbers speak a different language. Players seem to be loving it." showing that despite the massive public backlash from not only the subreddit, but also on the steam forums and community hub for Payday 2, and the massive drop in both the Steam user review score and the Meta critic score. At this point I was still willing to play the game, because It is still one of my favourite games of all time, and the skins weren't going to affect me as I was not going to buy the drills, and I don't mind seeing them in-game, people can like what they want after all, I'm not going to kick people just for using them like some others are. However what changed my mind and is making me write this out and changing my review, is the way that Overkill has introduced even more boosting skins, this time with exp and money boosts despite knowing that most of the outrage was because of the stat boosts to begin with, but also the way the Completely Overkill Pack owners (I am not one) were treated with their special and unique reward from buying what amounts to essentially a $15 donation to overkill. They were given a free safe, which contains 25 possible skins, and when opened gives you a random skin of random quality. Which means there is a large potential to get a skin in a poor quality for a gun you don't even like. The fact that people using a mod to unlock all the skins get a better deal than those who payed $15 for one skin is appalling and downright disappointing that Overkill thinks that this is ok. If this changes down the line I will edit once more and change this review, but for now Overkill have made me want to not recommend a game I love because of shady business operation. Edit 2: Overkill have since changed this system so that all the weapon boosts drop as regular weapon upgrades in the card drop system, and now all future safes are free to open. Overkill have listened to their community and fixed the issues that the majority of players had with the game, and now I can once more recommend this game 100%, with no hesitation. However, I will keep the original edit in, so that people may see what happened in the past, and that hopefully Overkill will not repeat their mistake in the future.