This is the single most brilliant puzzle game I have ever had the joy of playing, 10/10, keep a notebook (or, better, a note-taking program like Obsidian) handy.

EDIT: Turns out I jumped the gun, SONY has said that they wouldn't be rolling out the forced linking but then not only have they not removed the restrictions on the sale regions but they have added a handful more. I don't know what the reason is, I don't know what is happening behind closed doors, and I'm not going to pretend to. I'm also not OK with the way that ArrowHead is being jerked around by SONY over this and cannot recommend people buy the game until this mess is *fully* sorted out.

Major Order Completed, good work Helldivers. Sony deciding to back off in the face of the overwhelming backlash is amazing to see, and not the result I was expecting.

The response from the developers at ArrowHead was great to see, and I am overjoyed that they can hopefully put this mess behind them.

With that out of the way, the actual review of the game is that it is pretty friggin' good. It's weighty, it has some of the most satisfying feedback I've experienced in a game, the sound design is spectacular, the enemies are fun, it looks gorgeous, and so much more. It's got a just a dash of jank to it, yeah, but the developers have been fixing what's broken while dropping in new content at a breakneck pace.

It's a stellar game with a stellar community made by developers who clearly care, I cannot recommend it strongly enough. I am quite confident when I say this game is still just getting warmed up, and you probably don't want to miss out on the trip.

This is pretty solidly the most clever deckbuilder I've tried out, and I am definitely still scratching the surface.

The combos are slick, the levers you have available to pull on the combo engine are far more numerous than is obvious, the basic rules are simple and easy to grasp despite the potential complexity, it really nails everything that makes the genre work.

I knew the game was something special when I realized the right move in my specific situation was to ignore the royal straight flush I had in favor of just playing a single high card for a couple million chips. I'm very much looking forward to pushing into the higher difficulties to see what else I can twist until funny numbers come out.

I am through chapter one at the time of this review, and I have only praise for this game so far. The gameplay is extremely tight, the customization is absurdly detailed, the difficulty is feeling just right, and the visuals are gorgeous.

Something to note: if you are playing with a controller I highly recommend one with back paddle buttons, as you will want to be simultaneously aiming with the stick, jumping and dodging with the face buttons, and also firing with all four weapons using all four of your shoulder buttons. Back buttons set to jump and dodge make the controls work much better. It's playable without them since the hard-lock that automatically handles the camera can work well enough, but the hard-lock also reduces your target tracking vs manually aiming so you'll get to enjoy a higher skill ceiling if you can manually aim effectively.