Kinetic, expressive, subtle; full of all the joys and terrors you could want from a game like this. Most easily described as "Metal Gear Solid V as a roguelite", but I think that does the game a huge disservice.

It truly understands the slapstick comedy potential of teamkilling and ragdolls. Like accidentally fragging your friends with a 500kg bomb you dropped at your feet when a bug knocked you over. Or diving off a ledge slightly too high and colliding headfirst with the ground in what I like to call "the concussion special".

And it also has the nuance for different approaches, like silently dispatching a whole outpost beyond their range to sense you. Then there's all the details enabled by its structure, like watching other squads' ships help with stratagems while you're in space. Clearing an entire map of its enemies is both fun and rewarding, even though missions are procgen. It can be as hard or as easy as you like it, and the higher difficulty content is very fun even when you're fucking up and dying constantly. Helldivers 2 has a near endless capacity to surprise you with its wit and playfulness, if you let it.

Really glad I picked this up and played it before my friends group moved on from it. I play it an hour or so a day, I'm 50 hours deep with everything unlocked, and I'm excited to see where they take it.