Fine with being a contrarian here, this game is pretty solid now. There's still TTK and weapon balancing issues, but it's a pretty solid experience nowadays. The main thing is just that guns feel like laser pointers in this game more than any Battlefield before, especially assault rifles that still shoot straight from a 100m range.

The item shop is still kind of jarring of course, along with Battle Passes and the whole shebang. That's sort of outside the game for me though, since it's all cosmetic.

I will say, when people say this game "isn't Battlefield" it seems quite asinine to me, because there are plenty of series that have tried to "experiment" (or in this case, the development team was comprised of people who previously worked on Call of Duty) and still deliver a decent product that exists in the universe of previous installments while having notable differences. The series name is more of a brand than anything else, and when I read Battlefield I expect a large-scale FPS with vehicles and the conquest mode, which this game has had since launch.

Of course, the launch of this game was pretty catastrophic, but frankly we can still be critical of the practice of launching an unfinished game and resist buying said game, then when the game is actually polished, purchase the game. I really don't think anyone should be pre-ordering games or buying them on launch day anymore because of these practices, and we should be rewarding developers when they actually get their shit together (ie. No Man's Sky). This seems like what good consumer practice is, rather than just having blind hatred for any company that desecrates your series by releasing a subpar game at launch.

As if BFV was much better. But people will cope and say that game was good and 2042 is trash. Rose-tinted glasses as always.

Sorry for the rant.