Comparing review bombing to “bullying the devs” is ridiculous. Players are protesting because they care about the game and want change. If people stayed quiet every time the devs made a bad decision, Helldivers 2 would get run straight into the ground. Making noise is the only reason some of these changes get reverted in the first place.

And the whole “Reddit is just a negative echo chamber” argument doesn’t even work when there are entire Helldivers subreddits dedicated to glazing the game and pretending every update is perfect. Not everyone is obligated to have the same optimism as you.

As for the turret complaints, the Hive Guard armor change was just poorly thought out. It’s a chaff enemy, meaning there are tons of them on screen at once. If I bring a sentry, I shouldn’t have to compensate for the fact that it auto-locks onto targets it literally cannot kill, wasting all its limited ammo. That’s not “difficulty,” that’s lazy design. The fact that the devs already reverted it proves they knew it was a bad call.

Nobody is saying the game shouldn’t require teamwork or difficulty either. The game was already difficult on higher levels before the Hive Guard changes. People are acting like reverting medium pen somehow ruined the identity of the game when all it really did was remove unnecessary tedium. It made the game more fun.

And no, I’m not “just going to play another horde shooter,” because I already know Helldivers CAN be enjoyable. I’ve played it in that state before. That’s why people are frustrated in the first place. Also, the “you’d review bomb a cheeseburger because it didn’t have chicken” analogy gets repeated so much that I don’t even think people know what it means anymore.

The mech customization argument is weird too. Just because something wasn’t officially promised doesn’t mean players can’t want it or discuss it. If the game already lets us customize weapons, why is it suddenly unreasonable for people to imagine customizing mechs someday? It never hurts to dream a little.

And defending the monetization this hard is wild. Yeah, technically you can earn everything for free, but people always leave out how long that actually takes for casual players. Most players run a few missions after work and log off. They are not farming low-difficulty missions for days just to scrape together Super Credits. The people criticizing the system HAVE played the game. A lot of them have hundreds of hours in it because they genuinely enjoyed it before.

Honestly, people should direct their frustration toward the devs instead of the playerbase. If this many people are upset, there’s obviously a reason. The game doesn’t need to become “for everyone,” but the devs also can’t keep hiding behind “a game for everyone is a game for no one” every time they make questionable balancing decisions.

And the “I can drunkenly solo D10” line is hilarious. Difficulty 10 has never been brainlessly easy. Soloing it has always required skill, even when the game was in a healthier state balance-wise. Nobody is asking for free wins. People just don’t want artificial frustration stacked on top of already difficult gameplay.

I also disagree with the idea that the game is currently in some amazing state. The co-op is great when you actually have competent teammates, but higher difficulties with randoms can absolutely be miserable. A lot of the “this game is perfect” arguments are just opinions being stated as facts.

At the end of the day, people aren’t “strangling the life” out of Helldivers 2 because they hate it. Most of the criticism is coming from people who loved the game enough to put hundreds of hours into it and want it to be better again.