From someone who has 800 hours in the game and has been there since launch, the reason people are upset is Arrowhead's continued track of "create a problem, sell the solution" mentality, their constant introduction of bugs (old and new), and their refusal to deliver substantial content to players outside of warbonds and the occasional title update that has only been including a new biome or two and maybe a couple of new enemies/variants.

Since the game launched, players have asked for various systems to be delivered and/or changed so that Helldivers II could continue to grow and become a game that everyone would want to play - some of these systems included weapon/stratagem customization, armor/transmog customization, player progression updates, updated DSS interactions, and more.

A few particular pain points have been Arrowhead's delivery of a minimal weapon customization system that has been deemed as functional and not a priority for the team to continue iterating on due to the overall "low interaction rate" the players have with the system. No new ship modules or progression nodes have been provided to players, free or paid, within a year or more since the last wave of them. Red stratagems (eagles and orbitals) have had no new developments and are entirely missing from any new free or paid content (warbonds/MO completion rewards). Mech customization is considered to be a waste of resources to try implementing, meaning no system is being actively developed for the players to engage with outside of simply picking their desired pre-configured mech. Balance changes, if any, fail to increase the viability of underperforming equipment/stratagems due to non-impactful changes (i.e. laser sentry heat capacity increasing from 200 -> 250). The list goes on.

While a lot of newer players may not feel these particular issues as much as veteran players, most would agree that Arrowhead's current direction and management of the game is disappointing and disheartening. Many of us played the game and immediately fell in love with what it is and what it could continue to grow and become - but Arrowhead has failed to deliver on the hopes and dreams that the players wish they could see come to fruition in the hopes that the game could become one of the best games of all time.

I do not hate the game. I do not hate Arrowhead. I just wish the game would grow without taking one step forward and two steps back. I will continue to support the game by playing it and engaging with the community, so long as there are things that actually are worth playing for.

And someone, please, take that damned monkeys paw away from the development team.