Destiny 2 is like having an aging family member with dementia. Tons of costs, they seem to forget/repeat their mistakes, and you don't even know how long they have left until they just completely fall apart.

Currently, it is very difficult for me to recommend Destiny 2 to anybody as it doesn't seem like they have a clear direction they're heading towards, DLCs are expensive + sort of required, lots of FOMO, and all the recent extended maintenances.


While Destiny 2 comes across as a F2P game, don't think of it as such. The F2P aspect is a demo at best with a barebones tutorial followed by throwing you in the deep end. You are sort of required to pay money for DLCs/season passes if you want to do anything engaging or new and there's a good chance that if you have friends who play Destiny 2 they probably spent 50 bucks on the latest expansion (and they're expecting you to do it too so you can do the cool stuff together.) And if a certain build has a weapon belonging to another DLC, be prepared to spend another $10+ just for the opportunity to grind for that.

If you do decide to buy a DLC, you are probably going to struggle a lot because the game just dumps lore on you while you know nothing about past expansions or seasonal stories. So you'll probably have to spend several hours watching videos or lore summaries online before you can feel comfortable in the setting.

Unfortunately the game has a lot of pricing issues, if you want to buy one cosmetic you'll probably spend $10 and not really have enough to buy anything decent with what's left. If you don't buy the deluxe version of the latest expansion and want to buy the season passes or dungeon key then well that's $15 for a season pass (they raised the price ever so slightly so that you NEED to buy the $15 currency bundle as opposed to the $10 bundle) and another $20 for the dungeon key ($20 for 2 dungeons per expansion ???)

PVP is really stupid for new players. I don't know how Bungie failed this hard but imagine PVE affecting PVP to the point that if you don't have certain DLC it's going to be a lot harder for you to get a good weapon compared to another new player who just bought said DLC. Once you do get decent weapons, you will realize that PVP is even more stupid. Horrible matchmaking plus horrible balancing... and then Bungie releases a new meta-defining weapon, puts it in the sweatiest PVP mode to increase player count, and finally nerfs all other similar weapons except the new meta-defining one? Ok...
The fundamental idea behind this sweaty PVP mode called Trials is inherently one of the stupidest things I've seen. The goal is to win 7 times in a row to get the best rewards, so all this results in is casual players getting curbstomped while the best players get stronger because they get better gear. Not to mention the population is already low because of these factors alongside poor rewards in general. Have fun if you want to try that lmfao 👍

PVE itself can be a slog too. Bungie seems to be afraid of players having fun (because fun will get stuff nerfed through PVP) and the rewards can be scarce. Despite this, it is the most enjoyable part of the game. It's nice to just run content with cool new weapons and gear and play around with stuff. Dungeons and raids offer good challenges for players with friends and the story content is fine for the most part if you don't care too much about looking deep into the lore. It would be my recommendation to only focus on PVE but it's not really a good sign when someone tells you to just ignore a large part of the game. Often times you will feel lost though as if you don't really know what you're trying to do or achieve. This will last for a good bit until you get into the rhythm of how Destiny 2 plays and you figure out what you want to focus on.

FOMO is also another big issue with Destiny 2. The fact that a lot of loot is mostly unobtainable unless it comes into rotation within a specific activity or vendor is a bit annoying. This sucks a lot when someone recommends a specific weapon only for you to realize you can't really get it anymore or have to wait ages for a good random roll to pop up somewhere specific.

Lately, I do not know what exactly is going on behind the scenes but it seems as if the game is just falling apart. For the past several weeks the game has consistently needed to take an extended maintenance to the point I just don't even expect to play on the weekly reset day anymore. There are tons of new bugs and a lot of things just not working as intended. I believe this is possibly because Destiny 2 was never designed to be a long-term game when it was under Activision, but who knows.

If you somehow still want to play please have someone to help you play it (or like to research), have a lot of money, and love grinding.

Also, since I'm a Warframe player with 2k+ hours and a lot of people like to compare this game to Warframe I'll give my 2 cents:
Both games have horrible new player experiences and major flaws, but the big difference is that in Destiny 2 you will often find yourself paying for the worse experience.
Destiny 2 has a better story/narrative focus, but Warframe has its entire story.
They are both grindy, but Warframe has trading so it can be mitigated a fair bit, you can't really mitigate it in Destiny 2 unfortunately.
Destiny 2 has better gunplay, so-so movement (looking at you warlock jump...) and good focus on boss fights/challenging mechanics.
Warframe has better movement, so-so gunplay (really depends on the weapon), and focuses more on killing hordes/chill gameplay.

Destiny 2 is like having an aging family member with dementia. Tons of costs, they seem to forget/repeat their mistakes, and you don't even know how long they have left until they just completely fall apart. Currently, it is very difficult for me to recommend Destiny 2 to anybody as it doesn't seem like they have a clear direction they're heading towards, DLCs are expensive + sort of required, lots of FOMO, and all the recent extended maintenances. [h1] Long Review [/h1] While Destiny 2 comes across as a F2P game, don't think of it as such. The F2P aspect is a demo at best with a barebones tutorial followed by throwing you in the deep end. You are sort of required to pay money for DLCs/season passes if you want to do anything engaging or new and there's a good chance that if you have friends who play Destiny 2 they probably spent 50 bucks on the latest expansion (and they're expecting you to do it too so you can do the cool stuff together.) And if a certain build has a weapon belonging to another DLC, be prepared to spend another $10+ just for the opportunity to grind for that. If you do decide to buy a DLC, you are probably going to struggle a lot because the game just dumps lore on you while you know nothing about past expansions or seasonal stories. So you'll probably have to spend several hours watching videos or lore summaries online before you can feel comfortable in the setting. Unfortunately the game has a lot of pricing issues, if you want to buy one cosmetic you'll probably spend $10 and not really have enough to buy anything decent with what's left. If you don't buy the deluxe version of the latest expansion and want to buy the season passes or dungeon key then well that's $15 for a season pass (they raised the price ever so slightly so that you NEED to buy the $15 currency bundle as opposed to the $10 bundle) and another $20 for the dungeon key ($20 for 2 dungeons per expansion ???) PVP is really stupid for new players. I don't know how Bungie failed this hard but imagine PVE affecting PVP to the point that if you don't have certain DLC it's going to be a lot harder for you to get a good weapon compared to another new player who just bought said DLC. Once you do get decent weapons, you will realize that PVP is even more stupid. Horrible matchmaking plus horrible balancing... and then Bungie releases a new meta-defining weapon, puts it in the sweatiest PVP mode to increase player count, and finally nerfs all other similar weapons except the new meta-defining one? Ok... The fundamental idea behind this sweaty PVP mode called Trials is inherently one of the stupidest things I've seen. The goal is to win 7 times in a row to get the best rewards, so all this results in is casual players getting curbstomped while the best players get stronger because they get better gear. Not to mention the population is already low because of these factors alongside poor rewards in general. Have fun if you want to try that lmfao 👍 PVE itself can be a slog too. Bungie seems to be afraid of players having fun (because fun will get stuff nerfed through PVP) and the rewards can be scarce. Despite this, it is the most enjoyable part of the game. It's nice to just run content with cool new weapons and gear and play around with stuff. Dungeons and raids offer good challenges for players with friends and the story content is fine for the most part if you don't care too much about looking deep into the lore. It would be my recommendation to only focus on PVE but it's not really a good sign when someone tells you to just ignore a large part of the game. Often times you will feel lost though as if you don't really know what you're trying to do or achieve. This will last for a good bit until you get into the rhythm of how Destiny 2 plays and you figure out what you want to focus on. FOMO is also another big issue with Destiny 2. The fact that a lot of loot is mostly unobtainable unless it comes into rotation within a specific activity or vendor is a bit annoying. This sucks a lot when someone recommends a specific weapon only for you to realize you can't really get it anymore or have to wait ages for a good random roll to pop up somewhere specific. Lately, I do not know what exactly is going on behind the scenes but it seems as if the game is just falling apart. For the past several weeks the game has consistently needed to take an extended maintenance to the point I just don't even expect to play on the weekly reset day anymore. There are tons of new bugs and a lot of things just not working as intended. I believe this is possibly because Destiny 2 was never designed to be a long-term game when it was under Activision, but who knows. If you somehow still want to play please have someone to help you play it (or like to research), have a lot of money, and love grinding. Also, since I'm a Warframe player with 2k+ hours and a lot of people like to compare this game to Warframe I'll give my 2 cents: Both games have horrible new player experiences and major flaws, but the big difference is that in Destiny 2 you will often find yourself paying for the worse experience. Destiny 2 has a better story/narrative focus, but Warframe has its entire story. They are both grindy, but Warframe has trading so it can be mitigated a fair bit, you can't really mitigate it in Destiny 2 unfortunately. Destiny 2 has better gunplay, so-so movement (looking at you warlock jump...) and good focus on boss fights/challenging mechanics. Warframe has better movement, so-so gunplay (really depends on the weapon), and focuses more on killing hordes/chill gameplay.