TL;DR: I have never played a game that has made me wish steam would allow me to leave a mixed review quite like this one.

Imma just skip over the pros of this game because we all know what they are

+ Many Guns
+ Lots of Enemies
+ Tons of Explosions
+ Fast Respawn
+ Funni Rag Dolls
+ Destructible Environments
+ Halo Warthog Runs
+ WW1 Artillery Never Ends Moments
+ A Flexible, Diverse, Yet Simple Class/Loadout System
+ Very Chaotic
+ Much Fun

However there are 3 things holding this game back from being a masterpiece/must buy game for all gaymers

The good news about progression in this game is that you don't have to spend anything outside of the base game price to unlock everything. The bad news is you are going to have to grind for 100's of hours to unlock everything; Even so, this game has a similar problem halo did with it's battle-passes. You are just kind of stuck unlocking things in a linear path with little room to actually just buy the things you want. In short, upgrading your ship and unlocking new equipment is way more convoluted and grindy then it needs to be. This game would feel exactly the same if they just had you unlock stuff through the xp leveling system, but it would be better imo because I wouldn't have to go through menus to manually unlock stuff.

Warning: This game includes crashes and many unoptimized frames
Now this part is hard for me to judge, because my computer's specs is probably worst then minimum specs on the store page: Nvidia 1050ti, intel i5-7500, 16 gigs of RAM.
Now I can already hear you typing that roast in the comments: "Rug your computer needs to go back to 2014; you can't run Helldivers 2." But I've encountered a few people who have 3080's or even 4080's and they all claim to me this game is poorly optimized. The guys with the 3080 claimed he averages 60-80 fps and the 4080 averaged 100 fps. Doesn't sound bad until you realize most games they run average anywhere between 120-300 fps.

So I've never really been a frame junky; I'm mostly satisfied with running my games at 60 fps (which is why I haven't bothered to upgrade yet). I used to play Dayz back in the day with 30 fps, so when I booted up this game, turned it on lowest settings, got in a car, and started driving from the Illuminate, it gave me deja vu moments of driving through Cherno. The reason why I'm going on this tangent is to say this. There is a mod on Nexus Mods you can download that will force Helldivers 2 to run in DirectX-11 instead of DirectX-12. It will cause longer loading screens, and it won't fix any crashing issues, but it did boost my game from 30-40 fps to 50-60 fps. Why the devs haven't just added this option in themselves especially when it was so easy to install is beyond me. But this mod was really helpful in allowing me to play the game the intended way lmao. So if you have a lower end computer like me, and you are not sure if your computer can handle this game, look up that mod and thank me later.

Never have I ever encountered a community that will kick people from games for reasons I can't explain
-You will be kicked for not doing side objectives
-You will be kicked for even attempting side objectives with not enough lives
-You will be kicked for doing main objectives too fast
-You will be kicked for not doing main objectives fast enough
-You will be kicked for evacing too early
-You will be kicked for wanting to stick around and evacing later
-You will be kicked because you split from the group
-You will be kicked because you didn't split from the group
-You will be kicked for dying too much (even when every death you have is friendly fire)
-You will be kicked because your loadout isn't "meta"
-"Oops the host dolphin dived in front of me the moment I fired my rocket launcher" (get kicked idiot)
-And god forbid you even think about doing something "stupid" like respawning the host on a main objective when he was trying to do a side objective on the other side of the map, by himself, and died like an idiot because you will get kicked for that.

When I bought this game, I believed the YouTubers, social media, and memes about this game. I thought it was going to be a lowstakes game with a welcoming community like DRG or Payday, but instead I've come across screaming man children who will demand you play the game their way, but will also not explain what their way is (instead you just get kicked). I get the devs aren't exactly responsible with what type or how people are playing their games, but if you are looking for something lowerstakes/casual/friendlier to get into, I recommend staying away from this and picking up DRG.

Final Score: 7/10, could be masterpiece/must buy game; only being held back by lack of progression freedom, performance issues, and the community needs to chill.

TL;DR: I have never played a game that has made me wish steam would allow me to leave a mixed review quite like this one. Imma just skip over the pros of this game because we all know what they are [h1] Pros [/h1] + Many Guns + Lots of Enemies + Tons of Explosions + Fast Respawn + Funni Rag Dolls + Destructible Environments + Halo Warthog Runs + WW1 Artillery Never Ends Moments + A Flexible, Diverse, Yet Simple Class/Loadout System + Very Chaotic + Much Fun However there are 3 things holding this game back from being a masterpiece/must buy game for all gaymers [h1] Cons [/h1] [h3] 1. Progression [/h3] The good news about progression in this game is that you don't have to spend anything outside of the base game price to unlock everything. The bad news is you are going to have to grind for 100's of hours to unlock everything; Even so, this game has a similar problem halo did with it's battle-passes. You are just kind of stuck unlocking things in a linear path with little room to actually just buy the things you want. In short, upgrading your ship and unlocking new equipment is way more convoluted and grindy then it needs to be. This game would feel exactly the same if they just had you unlock stuff through the xp leveling system, but it would be better imo because I wouldn't have to go through menus to manually unlock stuff. [h3] 2. Performance [/h3] [b] Warning: This game includes crashes and many unoptimized frames [/b] Now this part is hard for me to judge, because my computer's specs is probably worst then minimum specs on the store page: Nvidia 1050ti, intel i5-7500, 16 gigs of RAM. Now I can already hear you typing that roast in the comments: "Rug your computer needs to go back to 2014; you can't run Helldivers 2." But I've encountered a few people who have 3080's or even 4080's and they all claim to me this game is poorly optimized. The guys with the 3080 claimed he averages 60-80 fps and the 4080 averaged 100 fps. Doesn't sound bad until you realize most games they run average anywhere between 120-300 fps. So I've never really been a frame junky; I'm mostly satisfied with running my games at 60 fps (which is why I haven't bothered to upgrade yet). I used to play Dayz back in the day with 30 fps, so when I booted up this game, turned it on lowest settings, got in a car, and started driving from the Illuminate, it gave me deja vu moments of driving through Cherno. The reason why I'm going on this tangent is to say this. There is a mod on Nexus Mods you can download that will force Helldivers 2 to run in DirectX-11 instead of DirectX-12. It will cause longer loading screens, and it won't fix any crashing issues, but it did boost my game from 30-40 fps to 50-60 fps. Why the devs haven't just added this option in themselves especially when it was so easy to install is beyond me. But this mod was really helpful in allowing me to play the game the intended way lmao. So if you have a lower end computer like me, and you are not sure if your computer can handle this game, look up that mod and thank me later. [h3] 3. The Community: Yes You (You Bastard) [/h3] Never have I ever encountered a community that will kick people from games for reasons I can't explain -You will be kicked for not doing side objectives -You will be kicked for even attempting side objectives with not enough lives -You will be kicked for doing main objectives too fast -You will be kicked for not doing main objectives fast enough -You will be kicked for evacing too early -You will be kicked for wanting to stick around and evacing later -You will be kicked because you split from the group -You will be kicked because you didn't split from the group -You will be kicked for dying too much (even when every death you have is friendly fire) -You will be kicked because your loadout isn't "meta" -"Oops the host dolphin dived in front of me the moment I fired my rocket launcher" (get kicked idiot) -And god forbid you even think about doing something "stupid" like respawning the host on a main objective when he was trying to do a side objective on the other side of the map, by himself, and died like an idiot because you will get kicked for that. When I bought this game, I believed the YouTubers, social media, and memes about this game. I thought it was going to be a lowstakes game with a welcoming community like DRG or Payday, but instead I've come across screaming man children who will demand you play the game their way, but will also not explain what their way is (instead you just get kicked). I get the devs aren't exactly responsible with what type or how people are playing their games, but if you are looking for something lowerstakes/casual/friendlier to get into, I recommend staying away from this and picking up DRG. Final Score: 7/10, could be masterpiece/must buy game; only being held back by lack of progression freedom, performance issues, and the community needs to chill.