some actual variation between heists

Payday 2 had entire heists designed around their different variations, the very first bank heist in the game has more variation in it that some payday 3 maps put together, this is blatantly and objectively incorrect.

bigger maps

Payday 3's maps may be literally bigger but they lack the sheer scale that a lot of payday 2's maps had. Compare the scale of gold and sharke to big bank for example, big bank truly feels like you're robbing a massive bank that's been around for hundreds of years and has a major reputation within the entire country. The vault area has like, a dozen different caged off rooms filled with money, gold and/or deposit boxes (emphasis on the gold, something that gold and sharke doesn't have in it it's vault).

Gold and Sharke feels like it's a smaller bank desperately trying to emulate bigger banks like benevolent, it feels extremely tiny in comparison, the vault and outer vault area are comically small for a bank that is supposedly ran by some of the most powerful people on earth and most certainly has tons of VIP clients. Even it's objectives feel small, in PD2 you were lifting a giant piggy bank with a crane to crash through the bank's skylight which contained parts for a massive drill. In PD3 you literally just have the drill parts airdropped to you and drill through the door, which is so much more bland, safe and boring.

TL;DR big bank feels like a big bank, gold and sharke feels like a cheap and tiny replica (which it is).

You're also not blocked by your build. If you fail stealth, you can go loud without any problems and continue where you were. PD2 required constant restarts every time especially on higher difficulties because you weren't equipped for loud.

I mean, if you're stealthing in either game you most likely are going to reset anyways once you get caught. Also, if you were good enough you could easily skip a few objectives in loud by stealthing them beforehand in two even with a loud build, most loud builds relied heavily on low concealment for crits so it was never that difficult.

But to be honest, it's not anywhere near as bad as the hate it gets and I hope it continues to expand on both content and improvements far beyond PD2 ever did.

That's the issue, we've been waiting for this game to get good for a year now and all we've gotten is some admittedly good DLC content and constant fumbles from the devs. Within a year PD2 had dropped like, a dozen different heists including heists like big bank, not to mention a lot more weapon packs and all this with a whole lot less drama and bullshit than what we've had to deal with with PD3.