Finished the game once on veteran and it's basically unplayable without mods. And even then I'd rather go play vanilla Clear Sky.
To start with difficulty. In previous games the "hardest" master difficulty made enemies and you do more damage, making combat smoother. In Stalker 2 hardest veteran difficulty makes enemies do more damage and you do less, leading in deadly bullet sponges. Mutants having armor parameters thus nullifying shotguns is also strange game design.
Secondly, A-life in it's current state doesn't work. Spawns are messed up and enemies despawn when further than 75m, making you unable to snipe your enemies.
Thirdly, the economy. While it seems that the economy isn't much different from SoC, item/upgrade/repair prices are way too inflated. Gear maintenance alone becomes unsustainable without hoarding 80kg of loot on every raid, not to mention upgrading your gear.
Lastly, optimisation. If you thought you could play with maximum settings, don't bother. It'll save you some grey hairs.
All in all this game doesn't have much going for it currently, I'll check back in roughly 6 months, but I doubt much'll have changed by then.

Edit: After almost a year, the only improvement seems to be in mods that try to fix the A-life. Can't believe I bothered to reinstall this game.

A game about London metro idk

FOR KARL!

Poorly optimized

It's a good game alright. Playing historically or a-historically doesn't matter, it'll be fun either way although playing historically might be a little more predictable. It takes a while to understand the mechanics and meta which is why you should first play as either Germany or USA. If you're having a problem, a solution can most likely be found in the community with it's wide variety of guides and advises. When it comes to dlc:s and multiplayer, everyone doesn't need the dlc:s. Only the host needs them. The only con really is that all major content updates are dlc:s, so a lot of money needs to be put in the game if you want a lot of content. There's always mods but some of them unfortunately need atleast 1 or 2 dlc:s to work so there's that. Overall a 8/10 game with lots of replay value.

This game makes you feel like you're spiderman

This game is the greatest 2D game I've ever played. Getting started is usually hard and the first night isn't a piece of cake (unless you're an experienced player). When you get to hardmode by winning the Wall of Flesh, things become even harder.