Currently, HellDivers 2 is still more fun than Space Marine 2.

[The Dess 2023 GOTY Edition]

TL'DR = Space Marine 2's combat mechanics are borked and in some ways inferior to its prequel. Hell Divers 2 should be fine if AH pull of their redemption arc. Space Marine 2 launched with nerfs making the player weak AF, unlike Helldivers 2 which was nerfed over time.

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This is because, as it currently stands, Space Marine 2 launched with all the nerfs that Hell Divers 2 worked towards which at least to my understanding is now being walked back.

I say this with just 7 hours into Space Marine 2. I played the prequel and recall fun moments playing the campaign and co-op missions with my buddies. Space Marine 2 however is not as fun in comparison, the melee combat system is weird, clunky and literally unappealing without any lick of enjoyment. The armour of the Primaris marine you use in the PVE co-op campaign might as well be sheet aluminum (or is it aluminium?) that melts away when taking hits from a few termagants never mind hive tyrants or what ever the dudes are that use whips.

Ranged combat is also miserable, people and myself included report emptying entire mags into tyrannid units that refuse to die, the smaller ones need 2 to 4 shots from a bolt gun to die. This quite frankly insane to me.

Departing from a mechanic in Space Marine 1 where you can regenerate health in combat, SM2 only allows armour regeneation via executions but the armour rating is weak so while you are gaining an armour point for executions you literally will lose it in that process as you are still taking hits. You can heal via stim packs but they are few and far between in missions.

The game from diff 3 up in single player mode is an unmitigated disaster where the game will focus you down whilst ignoring your AI team mates, everything will attack the human controlled player on sight and en mass resulting in death within seconds. Recall that the name of the game is still: SPACE MARINE 2 (and you are supposed to be a primaris marine for that matter).

Anyways my point is that Hell Divers 2 will be fine if AH get their latest patch going and ease up on the nerfs (as well as releasing the 180 banned regions). So y'all needn't worry.

Personally I am so far disappointed with playing Space Marine 2 because the combat mechanics in the PVE is supposed to translate into PVP, so unless the devs do something to balance this; I don't even see myself playing the game past 26 hours max. I'd rather just play Hell Divers 2.

Looks like there might be a trend in developers to create game experiences where the player character is purposely under powered. Some SM2 forumers reckon this because of inspiration to combine elements from games such as Doom Eternal and Dark Souls/Elden Ring. This may explain why AH tried to pull Hell Divers in that direction also. If truly the case I wish they all sit back and take note, purposely gimping the player to increase the challenge is never fun but very tedious bordering frustration.

[Evono]

Space marine 2 is basicly WWZ with a space marine coat.
The ai , the wall climbing Tyranids , even the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nades work exactly as 1 to 1 out of WWZ killing max 10 active models from the climbing blob and stuff.

[LeftIsBest-James]

I will get SM2 on sale:
- I loved SM1 storymode. The PvP was lacklustre.
- I love 40K lore.
- Storymode, I'm told is only 10-12h.

[JohnnyBravo40]

I returned space marine 2 lol

[tripodalt]

i found nearly all the universe of w40k in helldiver2 else the melee
. i not remind to have made a single kill with the melee attack.
the dreadnaught the tank the walker of legion : all that look barely cloned with minimal change and i really feel good about.
tought the ennemy firepower is not at the level.
also lack of wall climbing especially for bugs ennemys.

[Sagara]

SM is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trash. Anything with SM is trash. It is always the almost de facto worst faction in the game instead of the good guys like the Eldar, Necrons, Drukhari or Tau

[Squirt Games]

Extremely hard disagree based entirely on my own personal experiences, I have HD2 uninstalled until their redemption arc update hits, then i'll re-evaluate how I feel about comparing these two games in terms of fun, but as it stands currently I am having WAY more fun with SM2 then I had post escalation of freedom. 0 hate for helldivers though, I want both of these games to succeed, I love both. For democracy! For the Emperor!!

[The Dess 2023 GOTY Edition]

Originally posted by Terra's goofiest ultramarine:

Extremely hard disagree based on entirely on my own personal experiences, I have HD2 uninstalled until their redemption arc update hits, then i'll re-evaluate how I feel about comparing these two games in terms of fun, but as it stands currently I am having WAY more fun with SM2 then I had post escalation of freedom. 0 hate for helldivers though, I want both of these games to succeed, I love both. For democracy! For the Emperor!!

I literally just re-worked the control key bindings to begin to make combat work for me. It almost seems like they made the control system complicated on purpose to add complexity to the game.

I still feel that they need to buff the titular character to a point where he really does feel like a space marine. Until then, yeah; am a keep playing HD2.

[Fight For Lewd Your mom]

But the problem is i uninstall helldivers 2, not space marine 2. Lmao

[Darasuum]

Space marine 2 combat is great lol. 50 hours in and i never die on substantial. Master the timings.

Everything you are complaining about is literally just a skill issue.

[The Dess 2023 GOTY Edition]

Originally posted by Darasuum:

Space marine 2 combat is great lol. 50 hours in and i never die on substantial. Master the timings.

Everything you are complaining about is literally just a skill issue.

The game design is atrocious nothing to do with skill. Did you play the single player campaign at difficulty 3 and up? Because there are instances where the game throws all the enemies at you and you get stun locked to death.

Even the control bindings are ridiculous. There's a mission where the squad uses jump packs and the button to actually use the jump pack is separate from the dodge button, which you know can cause you to roll if you press it twice in a row which is also ridiculous as SPACE MARINE 1 had the jump / roll / jet pack button use the same key. Wanna explain that design choice?

Go to the SM2 forums and you will see entire threads of people complaining that the game isn't fun and that the control mechanisms are wack. Just because you like it doesn't mean everything is A-ok, the game has issues as is.

[senate]

Originally posted by JohnnyBravo40:

I returned space marine 2 lol

SAME

[Bigamo]

play both and like both, it is different, here we are like guardsman, there we are space marines. i really like both games, no need to get worried.

[The Dess 2023 GOTY Edition]

Originally posted by Bigamo:

play both and like both, it is different, here we are like guardsman, there we are space marines. i really like both games, no need to get worried.

from my experience of SM2 in its current iteration, we are also normal soldiers in fake power armour that gets shredded like paper. HD2 still the more fun game for me if compared. Like I said, a lot of people speculated that SM2 would some how kill off HD2, am just saying I now know for sure that will not happen. Different games yes, but SM2 will not retain its core player count if devs don't fix the underlying issues of the game right now.

That said, here's hoping AH delivers!

[Krystalmyth]

I hate this recent fascination with stimpack healing. What happened to self-healing mechanics? It was great in Helldivers 1 too, it's like it fell out of fashion once all the millenials started making games. I get it we miss healthpacks from the boomer shooter era, but those at least were plentiful. I dunno, I just, always thought the self-healing mechanic let you focus on just playing the damn game.

[Æɴɪsᴏ]

Yeah, nope.

This game in its current state is plain sad.