Man this launch was an amazing one just like cyberpunk and no mans sky! all hype and no delivery, y'know its scuffed when their own launch stream with ice cube wouldn't work and they had to cancel and just use re-runs of beta game-play. If you try to rationalize or make an excuse for this game, remember there was an alpha and multiple closed and open beta tests, how did this not come up or become a problem AFTER the fact? Congrats starbreeze on single handedly proving me wrong, there is a way a game could launch worse than those mentioned before. If always online is the way games are going to be made now then I chose the wrong hobby. Thanks starbreeze for wasting my money, again, atleast it wasn't a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ heist and mediocre weapon dlc this time.
Game not working aside I still feel like this doesn't warrant the "3" this is 100% a payday 2.5. Same game on a new engine looking fresh and clean, the shooting is improved, animations are way better, and the effects look pretty good. As far as improvements there aren't many past what I just mentioned. The gameplay doesn't flow as well as it used to, the heists range from being finished in 10 mins to sometimes taking 45 with no in between. The weapon variety and selection is awful compared to payday 2 (i understand its a new game yada yada just cant port everything over) and the lack of overkill weapons is hysterical to me. Game launches with 2 weapon in that category like somebody forgot it existed. The amount of grinding to level up weapons is obnoxious and the new perk system while a welcome change is poorly executed and just as grindy.
(TLDR)
-UI is trash, minimalist design that doesn't display important details/equipment of teammates
-Matchmaking is a joke
-No lobbies/crime-net for matchmaking and there are 32(8 heist x 4 difficulties) separate queues to MM from
-Awful skill/perk system(combined both from payday 2 but feels 1/4th as impactful)
-Buggy AI, clipping through floors/walls and doing nothing a lot of times(just watched me get pounded by a Cloaker)
-Ridiculously Grindy, skills/weapon mods are all locked behind XP
-Weapons/gear/armor are locked behind infamy/challenges(which again requires ridiculous grinding, beating X level for X amount of times, killing x amount of enemies with x weapon, etc.)
-Lackluster weapons(17 in total) at launch, 2 types overkill weapons(launcher and 50 cal), 4 types of primary weapons(rifle, marksman, SMG and shotgun) and 2 types of secondary weapons(pistol and revolver)
-Limited replayability(tied mostly to unlocking things with challenges/infamy), with only 8 heist(7 being doable in both loud and stealth) at launch


All in all, Payday 2.5 is a very mediocre game with some fun gameplay that could be good with friends, if you can get a lobby to play with them but unfortunately they killed the servers already, made nebula worse somehow, and the game doesn't have private lobbies or local hosting. Miss this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and save your money for helldivers 2 or spacemarine 2, or go invest in starship troopers early access.