Its taken quite awhile for me to find a way to define my disdain for Helldivers 2, and I recently realized exactly what the problem was.

I say this because the every progression system revolves around grinding for various currencies, and nothing else.

The main way to obtain additional equipment is to acquire the games premium currency, Super-Credits and spend said currency to Purchase a new Warbond.
The base warbond provides access to 10 primary weapons, 1 sidearm, 3 grenades, and about 5 or 6 armour traits. Super credits gate access to 17 primary weapons, 9 sidearms, 6 grenades, 9 armour traits, and 5 stratagems.
In this time I believe we've recieved... 1? primary Weapon, and I believe 7 new strategems added that don't cost super credits.

After purchasing a warbond a player has to grind out the mission reward currency, Medals. Medals are spent to buy any and everything in the Warbonds. However there's a catch, players must spend a certain amount of Medals in a Warbond to move on to its next page of equipment, This is often intentionally designed in a way to require players to spend more than they would like to access the gear they actually want.
(For example in the Truth Enforcers warbond you are required to spend 50 medals on a skin to access the second page)

Lastly you have Samples. These are spent to purchase permanent upgrades to types of equipment. This unfortunately does not use a skill-tree system, so all lesser upgrades are mandatory purchases if you want a specific buff that was placed later down the line, and these upgrades get substantially more expensive.

The Super-Credits and Samples only spawn in points of interest around the maps, and in the case of the Super-Credits it is a random chance for the structures to even contain any.
I didn't mention this earlier but each warbond costs 1000 super credits, and each pickup provides 10. To afford the warbonds without the power of real world money you need to roll the dice with map generation and structure loot until you find 100 of these pickups.
And I'd be remiss if I forgot about the caps. For most of these currencies there are obnoxiously low maximum quantities that you're allowed to have in your inventory at a time.
Medals in particular cap at 250 when the cost of items range anywhere between 6 and 100. Again, this game costs 40- 50$ yet the developers can't help but drag things out and impose arbitrary limits on the players whenever possible.

This tedious and limiting system for progression pairs with the gameplay to create a very repetitive and often unrewarding experience.

This repetition comes from the size of maps, limited ways to interact with the environment, extremely limited quantities and types of structures generated in missions, repetitive equipment options, limited equipment variety, enemy spam, all working together to quickly cause a lack of surprise when encountering what variety is offered.
There's only so much to see and do before it becomes a chore where your rewards aren't based on your effort or your choices, instead they're based on what loot the structures rolled.

The greatest strength of the game is that it's still growing and being worked on by developers that claim to care about their game. Though I'm left doubting their abilities to actually improve because of how linear and simplistic most of the content is, alongside the numerous mistakes they've made in the past.

Other notable Horde Shooters don't have these problems. Left for Dead 2 exists, Deep Rock Galactic exists, Payday 2 exists, heck you could even count TF2's man vs machine mode. All of these have their own hosts of issues, but in my eyes also all provide players with a far more rewarding experience than can be obtained from Helldivers 2.

Its taken quite awhile for me to find a way to define my disdain for Helldivers 2, and I recently realized exactly what the problem was. [h2]Helldivers 2 is a 50$ game with the design and monetization model of a Free to Play [/h2] I say this because the every progression system revolves around grinding for various currencies, and nothing else. The main way to obtain additional equipment is to acquire the games premium currency, Super-Credits and spend said currency to Purchase a new Warbond. The base warbond provides access to 10 primary weapons, 1 sidearm, 3 grenades, and about 5 or 6 armour traits. Super credits gate access to 17 primary weapons, 9 sidearms, 6 grenades, 9 armour traits, and 5 stratagems. In this time I believe we've recieved... 1? primary Weapon, and I believe 7 new strategems added that don't cost super credits. After purchasing a warbond a player has to grind out the mission reward currency, Medals. Medals are spent to buy any and everything in the Warbonds. However there's a catch, players must spend a certain amount of Medals in a Warbond to move on to its next page of equipment, This is often intentionally designed in a way to require players to spend more than they would like to access the gear they actually want. (For example in the Truth Enforcers warbond you are required to spend 50 medals on a skin to access the second page) Lastly you have Samples. These are spent to purchase permanent upgrades to types of equipment. This unfortunately does not use a skill-tree system, so all lesser upgrades are mandatory purchases if you want a specific buff that was placed later down the line, and these upgrades get substantially more expensive. The Super-Credits and Samples only spawn in points of interest around the maps, and in the case of the Super-Credits it is a random chance for the structures to even contain any. I didn't mention this earlier but each warbond costs 1000 super credits, and each pickup provides 10. To afford the warbonds without the power of real world money you need to roll the dice with map generation and structure loot until you find 100 of these pickups. And I'd be remiss if I forgot about the caps. For most of these currencies there are obnoxiously low maximum quantities that you're allowed to have in your inventory at a time. Medals in particular cap at 250 when the cost of items range anywhere between 6 and 100. Again, this game costs 40- 50$ yet the developers can't help but drag things out and impose arbitrary limits on the players whenever possible. This tedious and limiting system for progression pairs with the gameplay to create a very repetitive and often unrewarding experience. This repetition comes from the size of maps, limited ways to interact with the environment, extremely limited quantities and types of structures generated in missions, repetitive equipment options, limited equipment variety, enemy spam, all working together to quickly cause a lack of surprise when encountering what variety is offered. There's only so much to see and do before it becomes a chore where your rewards aren't based on your effort or your choices, instead they're based on what loot the structures rolled. The greatest strength of the game is that it's still growing and being worked on by developers that claim to care about their game. Though I'm left doubting their abilities to actually improve because of how linear and simplistic most of the content is, alongside the numerous mistakes they've made in the past. [h2] As a whole I would recommend Helldivers 2 only if you already have a friendgroup to play it with. Otherwise I would not recommend this game unless the developers add a more rewarding method for progression, and a less problematic monetization model. [/h2] Other notable Horde Shooters don't have these problems. Left for Dead 2 exists, Deep Rock Galactic exists, Payday 2 exists, heck you could even count TF2's man vs machine mode. All of these have their own hosts of issues, but in my eyes also all provide players with a far more rewarding experience than can be obtained from Helldivers 2.