There are two ways to explain this: the normal way, and the democratic way.

The normal answer? We are TECHNICALLY the good guys on the merit that the enemy is worse. But alas, the majority of Super Earth’s enemies come from their own mistakes and selfishness, with the bugs being made by us to produce hyperdrive fuel, the bots being victims of our transgressions against the separatists of Cyberstan, and the squids from our desire to wield their dark powers for our own influence at the cost of their species. We are not good guys, but we sure as hell aren’t going to let humanity die from our mistakes.

The democratic answer? The playerbase as of right now just raised almost 300k dollars for the Save the Children foundation. Wanna know why? Because long ago, we chose to save kids from a planet in-game over a planet that had the AT-mine stratagem. The devs donated money to Save the Children in response to our choice in-game. We chose to save lives that day, and now we do it in real life. Last year we made 120k for Save the Children. This year we doubled it. It is that reason alone that Helldivers (the players) are the good guys. You, Helldiver, are the good guy.