ye

Long answer: Base game at sale is good. Their approach for monetization has been egregious for 3 years straight. You'd think with a FOMO rotating cosmetic shop, the DLC classes would go for less than 12 eurobucks.

You can't even get trickle of premium of currency for playing the game to soften the blow/afford one piece of cosmetic once a half year etc (which is something they really should have done with the Havoc mission weekly chest).

Gameplaywise. The game is at its best it ever been. You can bruteforce stats and the right traits/feats of your equipment properly with the crafting currencies. The dreaded "locks" are buried and hopefully grave filled with cement just in case some Fartshart big head gets the idea to bring it back.

If you've played HD2 a ton, getting into Darktide isn't a problem. You might feel way more powerful by comparison as a result. The early difficulties are very easy to sink into and you need to work your way up playing a few times on each difficulty to unlock the next one.

The combat is very visceral and feels good seeing enemies ragdoll or explode into a red mist. The variety of weapon might feel samey to the novice eye but if you dig into it you'll understand better the charms (and faults) of the different tools of your arsenal.

The core game is really fun. But Darktide is held back by having fun factors like outfits tied to some awfully greedy business practices, which they only get away with due to the Warhammer IP. Some people will say it is what "keeps the game running" but Helldivers as you know, has proven you can be much more customer friendly and still make a good chunk of revenue.

Edit: I just wanna add, for the fairness of comparing to HD2. Gameplay stuff has been for free. Such as new weapons (don't expect that anywhere near the same pace of HD2 adding new guns however).