This is how I learn that I'm kinda an idiot

Prices are as paradox taught us to expect, so don't look at buying at full price.
However, in most every way an improvement over the predecessor. Much more customization of your people and spells, the affinity system is a nice addition, and siege battles are much less of a slog, albeit at the cost of making you wait to breach the walls before attacking. Overall big thumbs up for the game, but thumbs down for the pricing

Zoe best girl

Positive review is in the queue, position 1637

Buggy? Yes. A little barebones endgame? Yes, there will clearly need to be some free content updates alongside paid dlc. But it'd be disingenuous to leave a negative review with how much fun I'm having still, and how glued to this game I've become. Far from perfect, but what's there is already good - only hope they will keep giving more

I could not recommend this game enough.

I find it, well, hard to experience, personally. On an emotional level. But that only speaks to the quality of writing. It's nothing short of phenomenal.

Fun enough game. Story is a big cringy but honestly who even pays attention to it

One bad thing about it, as tends to be in racing games, is the way NPC opponents are handled. Any game where there's supposed to be a symmetric competition will have the AI cheat. Hell, sometimes just by virtue of it's Best to grab some friends and hit the road as a party, much more fun competing that way.

Honestly, the game is really fun, and it's clear a lot of love was poured into it. But still, the development had to be absolutely torturous. The amount of bugs is staggering, thankfully a lot of them are purely visual or otherwise don't affect the game much. But then there are times you die and all your hard-earned samples fall through the ground, unrecoverable. Or when mission objectives are indestructible and you can do nothing but quit.

But there are design choices that are baffling too. There's an entire warbond called polar patriots, but I guess super earth doesn't do woolen socks because the armors in there don't mitigate effects of cold. There are, aside from desert planets, planets with literal fire tornadoes with density that makes Tokyo metropolis pale in comparison. But there is no armor that protects from heat or fire. However, there is armor that almost completely negates electrical damage. Of which the only source in the game are helldivers themselves. In general the armor perk pool isn't that great, and then they give you ones that are nothing short of gimmicky. Stealth, in the first game even an objective of an achievement, and an absolutely viable way of doing high-level missions, here gets a powerful kick in the nuts, as a large source of samples, xp, and requisition are enemy outposts. Sure you can sneak up to those, but firing a weapon or throwing in a stratagem, something you need to do to clear them, will near instantly earn you aggro.

I would gladly give the game a thumbs up, and definitely will if it gets some more polish. There's an amazing core there, and I hope devs will continue putting in the work.

pew pew pew

Now, I enjoyed the game a lot and definitely can recommend it. In fact, vastly prefer this one over age of decadence. Depending on how many times you have to reload, and how thorough you want to be, it's 20-25 of nice sci-fi crpg. But I want to point out some things that I wish would've been done better:
-Companions: The people who can tag along with you don't have a lot of weight with them. Of course they fill in the gaps in skills you might be lacking, and sometimes offer their opinion or some offhanded comments, but still seem pretty shallow. It's not fair perhaps to compare this one to BG3, but I feel like there could've been some more love given to your party.
-I feel like the information we are given before having to make a decision between different factions is very barebones. Almost like we're told "This guy is pro freedom, this guy is pro order, now choose". It makes it feel artificial, with a "tell, don't show" vibe. If the game were a little longer maybe we could be shown more about how those people behave, and feel more confident about our choice.