Having a blast with Payday 2. I'm not the world's best at shooters by any stretch of the imagination but I like to think I'm pretty decent. I've mostly been playing it with my brother and 2 bots on +1 jobs, and I find it to be challenging but fair for someone of my skill level. We've had more than a few close calls, some of which lasted for up to 5 minutes of continuous pressure and even a little desperation (5 minutes is a LONG time in this), but we've always managed to pull it off every time and have yet to lose.
At least for someone of my skill level, Payday 2 does a phenomenal job of striking a balance between thrill and frustration. 90% of the time if I went down it's because I didn't look around before I went somewhere, but then a bot pulled me up, I got my head back in the game and we got it done. It forgives the occasional screw-up but you definitely feel like you're one or two mistakes from blowing it at times and that keeps you feeling tense, until you haul everything out and feel relief at your escape. Obviously you won't feel like that every time you play, but it's nice that you have a tangible sense of accomplishment somewhat often. It's exciting to be the one running halfway across the street and back, pitching bags into the safety of an alley so your buddy can load the van between sprays of suppressing fire, with bullets flying all around from all sides and you're just praying that not too many hit you at once because if you go down in the street you're in deep trouble and you hauled all that cash out of the vault for nothing.
I will say as it stands, those who are looking for stealthy heists are probably going to be disappointed - bystanders across the street spot hostages with almost superhuman ease, and often the easiest/only way to be sneaky is to kill a lot of them before they call the police. It's obvious that the developers watched Heat close to a million times, since the emphasis is clearly on huge, loud gunfights against lots of cops. And I mean loud - if you leave the volume settings on default, good luck hearing your team if they say something important while you or they are shooting. Gunshots also echo down the street when you fire outdoors, which is a great atmospheric touch and again is straight out of Heat. The system by which weapon mods are awarded leaves a lot to be desired as well, but the developers seem to be open to making changes based on feedback and hopefully that will extend to the way mods are obtained. Overall though, it's probably the best cooperative shooter I've played in years and is worth every penny.
Huh? I'm sorry, I was thinking about cake.