Kernel level anti cheat, battle pass, micro transactions in a $40 game btw. It was shit from the beginning. Unfortunate cause the game itself is so good.
As someone who spent 5 years making games, and 3 years in the industry, GAMES SHOULD BE FREE.
Good games come from passionate developers. Even the first major releases of Godot was built on the backs of 3 open source developers and some contributors. But when I started working for a gaming company, I saw the sleezy PMs look at players as nothing more than numbers on spreadsheets, fun features take the backseat to more monetization, and all the good content that made the game fun come from developers working overtime to make it happen.
People inherently want to make fun games. It's the hyper competitive toxic industry that's holding everyone back.
I think that means games should cost more and developers should be fairly compensated such that not only super passionate people would tolerate the working conditions.
Basically, it was a good enough game for it to be worth being that one AAA game you touch every 5 years, but Sony adding more bulshit past the refund window was the straw the broke the camels back for a lot of us. The other AAA bulshit we knew about going in
I agree with most of what you say, but the term "micro transations" does not fit. It does have a shop where you can unlock equipment and cosmetic items using either ingame money or real money. However, once unlocked the equipment is free to use as much as you want.
On the other hand, "micro transactions" means that the gameplay requires repeated purchases, like health potions, or ammunition. That is not the case in HD2.