Hiya. PAYDAY 2 Veteran here (5K playtime) and PAYDAY: The Heist (100% achievement done) PAYDAY 3 has a rough start but you should give it a try. Here is why

PAYDAY 3 may not be a true successor of PAYDAY 2 as it has quite a different gameplay style. Now it is similar to PAYDAY: The Heist in term of gameplay but the stealth gameplay is much better than PAYDAY 2 in many aspects.

The Good(s):
- On loud gameplay. You now have around 3 phases. The first phase when the heist goes loud is "Nagotiation phase" If you have a hostage. You can trade for delaying the first assault, note that in this phase. No one should shoot a gun without a silencer or go near any cops as it will kill this phase super fast. The second phase is a normal assault with a unique special in each phase. For example: Cloaker, Grenader, Zapper If you have a Dozer assault wave then enemy SWAT will turn to be a "Heavy SWAT" instead with is harder to deal with (Due to more armor). After the end of each wave, you can trade hostages for resources or for your custody teammate . This helps a lot if you don't have medic bag with you. The last phase is "Final Charge" Where the cops will keep sending mixed specials with only Heavy SWAT unit to win against you. The last one forces you to do to finish the objective asap or else you can't win the heist.
- Next is Stealth gameplay. Three new are for you which is "Public area" where you can do almost anything in casual mode so long as you don't mask up. No one will care what you do(unless it's an illegal action), "Private area" Where civilians won't care about you but the guard won't like you when you are in this area and he will try to escort you out of the area. Last area is "Secure area" where you can't let a guard or any civilians see you or the guard will try to apprehend you, in this area. You can try running into a door and the guard will get suspicious and check the noise. That way. You can sneak past them to do an objective. The pager system is much better compared to PAYDAY 2 since now you can reply pager more than the limit for one time but it will turn all the guards in the map to start the "Searching..." stage where you have to not let them see you or they will either arrest you or shoot you back. It may be more forgiving than in PAYDAY 2 but it's not easy as it sounds as there are more obstacles like a camera, a door with QR code required and a password to unlock some specific area.
- Back to a loud gameplay. You have quite some weapons to fight cops. Since the enemy always has the same HP in every difficulties. Most guns in this game are good enough to fight them back (Except... Uzi. Seriously. Just buff it. Its damage is junk) The gun kick. The recoil. Its effect. The way when you change modification and it gives slightly different feeling. It makes you feel so good with those guns. Especially the reload system. Now you will have a continuous reload while doing something else. No more weird reloading animation like in PAYDAY 2.
- Cops and Special enemies are not zombies anymore. One thing I hate about PAYDAY 2 is when enemy loves piling up at the same spot. Stacking up none-stop and no tactic at all. They just spawn and try to go near a player to kill that player but with PAYDAY 3? Nope. That zombie event won't happen. On PAYDAY 3 cops rely on heavily scripted areas as they will use a lot of covers together with a help of other special units like shield. Normal SWAT and heavy SWAT will go behind the shield or try to flank player using other paths to go.
- Special enemies are far superior than PAYDAY 2. Ex: Cloaker is sneakier and scarier since he can attack you with his kick and can do wall running just like in PAYDAY: The Heist, he can even destroy your deployable so watch out. Dozer can charge at you and can down you within 5 second even if you have full health and armor. Greneder can use flashbang, posion grenade at you. Zapper (Taser) can deploy electric shock trap to stun you. Last but not least. Shield who can stun you in close range and other normal cops unit can go behind him to use him as a cover.
- Bots. Yes yes... bots are ♥♥♥♥ since they love blocking your firing view and they keep dying but bots can give you free deployable per assault wave which is super good if you play solo or without full 4 human players.
- Skill: No more power creep perk decks, over power skills like Inspire or high damage melee hit build. Now the skills in PAYDAY 3 can support you in a good way but some skills are still quite too good to skip Ex: Ammo Funnel + Replenish. Skills that can give and refresh 3 new mandatory buffs: Edge, Grit and Rush. Now you really have to rely on yourself to win the game just like in PAYDAY: The Heist.
- The map. They are so unique. Even Though we have only 8 heists right now but the replay ability is right there. Most maps (except Road Rage) you can play both stealth or loud. The same deal as PAYDAY 2. You will have to try many many times to master each heist. Some maps you can use many methods to win the heist Ex: use crowd control to force cops to be less aggressive and special unit Grenader, he can't use his poison grenade due to having civilians around us. Or go half stealth to skip some objective then go loud later. Your choice.
- The soundtrack: While it may not be too fancy like PAYDAY 2 but they suit the heist quite well. Good song for a day, makes your problem away.

The Bad(s):
- The UI is bad in overall. You can't see your friend's ammo. No Stats. Pressing Tab won't give enough info. Waypoints and Hints in some maps take too long to show. People will get confused as they don't know what to do in each heist.
- No proper preplanning. Not even Blueprint map unlike PAYDAY 2 (wanna draw PP? In your dream suckers.) 
- The favor in each heist is given it to you randomly. You cannot pick what you want to have. Yet some favors can change the gameplay drastically. Ex: The zipline can save your time a lot for transporting loot
- Restarting the heist won't change any RNG (Yep. Enjoy this while it's last.)
- Repeatative challenges system to gain Infamy Points to get all 21 skill points. it's not engaging, too grindy and it's not fun to do. Ex: Kill 1000 enemy to get infamy points. Plus we don't have an option to make it shows in Tab nor track it unlike PAYDAY: The Heist. This needs to be fixed or to be revamped in the next update if possible.
- Exploits to level up your weapon level. Yes... it sounds beyond stupid but in this game. You have to level up both your guns and your infamy points. While the gun modification parts shouldn't be locked behind the wall. But here we are in in PAYDAY 3 (2023) where you have to use an exploit to max out your weapon level. (Note: I will never ever use exploit for leveling up my weapons. Playing normally is enough)
- Super Duper Barebone and half-baked menus. Ex: WeaponUI, Awful Matchmaking. While it's useable. It's not user friendly and it has a huge flaw in it. You can't press ready again. You can't cancel the matchmaking as it will kick you out of your party without caring if you are a host or not.

The Ugly(s):
- We PC players will keep having a delayed update because of the console platform. This will repeat as a circle. That's fo sho
- Lack of content. When you go past level.100 then there aren't many things to do left.
- Playing meta by using Armor bag is required in most heists. It's sad but this still stands true.
- People keep bringing only challenges items and it affects the gameplay. Ex: someone is farming pistol kill so that person will rarely use his primary weapon. This kills even stealth gameplay in many heists as people don't see the point to finish it in stealth

Hopefully the dev will fix many many many issues in the game and add more QoL items for improving the game and lead the game to success though only time will tell.

Hiya. PAYDAY 2 Veteran here (5K playtime) and PAYDAY: The Heist (100% achievement done) PAYDAY 3 has a rough start but you should give it a try. Here is why PAYDAY 3 may not be a true successor of PAYDAY 2 as it has quite a different gameplay style. Now it is similar to PAYDAY: The Heist in term of gameplay but the stealth gameplay is much better than PAYDAY 2 in many aspects. The Good(s): - On loud gameplay. You now have around 3 phases. The first phase when the heist goes loud is "Nagotiation phase" If you have a hostage. You can trade for delaying the first assault, note that in this phase. No one should shoot a gun without a silencer or go near any cops as it will kill this phase super fast. The second phase is a normal assault with a unique special in each phase. For example: Cloaker, Grenader, Zapper If you have a Dozer assault wave then enemy SWAT will turn to be a "Heavy SWAT" instead with is harder to deal with (Due to more armor). After the end of each wave, you can trade hostages for resources or for your custody teammate . This helps a lot if you don't have medic bag with you. The last phase is "Final Charge" Where the cops will keep sending mixed specials with only Heavy SWAT unit to win against you. The last one forces you to do to finish the objective asap or else you can't win the heist. - Next is Stealth gameplay. Three new are for you which is "Public area" where you can do almost anything in casual mode so long as you don't mask up. No one will care what you do(unless it's an illegal action), "Private area" Where civilians won't care about you but the guard won't like you when you are in this area and he will try to escort you out of the area. Last area is "Secure area" where you can't let a guard or any civilians see you or the guard will try to apprehend you, in this area. You can try running into a door and the guard will get suspicious and check the noise. That way. You can sneak past them to do an objective. The pager system is much better compared to PAYDAY 2 since now you can reply pager more than the limit for one time but it will turn all the guards in the map to start the "Searching..." stage where you have to not let them see you or they will either arrest you or shoot you back. It may be more forgiving than in PAYDAY 2 but it's not easy as it sounds as there are more obstacles like a camera, a door with QR code required and a password to unlock some specific area. - Back to a loud gameplay. You have quite some weapons to fight cops. Since the enemy always has the same HP in every difficulties. Most guns in this game are good enough to fight them back (Except... Uzi. Seriously. Just buff it. Its damage is junk) The gun kick. The recoil. Its effect. The way when you change modification and it gives slightly different feeling. It makes you feel so good with those guns. Especially the reload system. Now you will have a continuous reload while doing something else. No more weird reloading animation like in PAYDAY 2. - Cops and Special enemies are not zombies anymore. One thing I hate about PAYDAY 2 is when enemy loves piling up at the same spot. Stacking up none-stop and no tactic at all. They just spawn and try to go near a player to kill that player but with PAYDAY 3? Nope. That zombie event won't happen. On PAYDAY 3 cops rely on heavily scripted areas as they will use a lot of covers together with a help of other special units like shield. Normal SWAT and heavy SWAT will go behind the shield or try to flank player using other paths to go. - Special enemies are far superior than PAYDAY 2. Ex: Cloaker is sneakier and scarier since he can attack you with his kick and can do wall running just like in PAYDAY: The Heist, he can even destroy your deployable so watch out. Dozer can charge at you and can down you within 5 second even if you have full health and armor. Greneder can use flashbang, posion grenade at you. Zapper (Taser) can deploy electric shock trap to stun you. Last but not least. Shield who can stun you in close range and other normal cops unit can go behind him to use him as a cover. - Bots. Yes yes... bots are shit since they love blocking your firing view and they keep dying but bots can give you free deployable per assault wave which is super good if you play solo or without full 4 human players. - Skill: No more power creep perk decks, over power skills like Inspire or high damage melee hit build. Now the skills in PAYDAY 3 can support you in a good way but some skills are still quite too good to skip Ex: Ammo Funnel + Replenish. Skills that can give and refresh 3 new mandatory buffs: Edge, Grit and Rush. Now you really have to rely on yourself to win the game just like in PAYDAY: The Heist. - The map. They are so unique. Even Though we have only 8 heists right now but the replay ability is right there. Most maps (except Road Rage) you can play both stealth or loud. The same deal as PAYDAY 2. You will have to try many many times to master each heist. Some maps you can use many methods to win the heist Ex: use crowd control to force cops to be less aggressive and special unit Grenader, he can't use his poison grenade due to having civilians around us. Or go half stealth to skip some objective then go loud later. Your choice. - The soundtrack: While it may not be too fancy like PAYDAY 2 but they suit the heist quite well. Good song for a day, makes your problem away. The Bad(s): - The UI is bad in overall. You can't see your friend's ammo. No Stats. Pressing Tab won't give enough info. Waypoints and Hints in some maps take too long to show. People will get confused as they don't know what to do in each heist. - No proper preplanning. Not even Blueprint map unlike PAYDAY 2 (wanna draw PP? In your dream suckers.)  - The favor in each heist is given it to you randomly. You cannot pick what you want to have. Yet some favors can change the gameplay drastically. Ex: The zipline can save your time a lot for transporting loot - Restarting the heist won't change any RNG (Yep. Enjoy this while it's last.) - Repeatative challenges system to gain Infamy Points to get all 21 skill points. it's not engaging, too grindy and it's not fun to do. Ex: Kill 1000 enemy to get infamy points. Plus we don't have an option to make it shows in Tab nor track it unlike PAYDAY: The Heist. This needs to be fixed or to be revamped in the next update if possible. - Exploits to level up your weapon level. Yes... it sounds beyond stupid but in this game. You have to level up both your guns and your infamy points. While the gun modification parts shouldn't be locked behind the wall. But here we are in in PAYDAY 3 (2023) where you have to use an exploit to max out your weapon level. (Note: I will never ever use exploit for leveling up my weapons. Playing normally is enough) - Super Duper Barebone and half-baked menus. Ex: WeaponUI, Awful Matchmaking. While it's useable. It's not user friendly and it has a huge flaw in it. You can't press ready again. You can't cancel the matchmaking as it will kick you out of your party without caring if you are a host or not. The Ugly(s): - We PC players will keep having a delayed update because of the console platform. This will repeat as a circle. That's fo sho - Lack of content. When you go past level.100 then there aren't many things to do left. - Playing meta by using Armor bag is required in most heists. It's sad but this still stands true. - People keep bringing only challenges items and it affects the gameplay. Ex: someone is farming pistol kill so that person will rarely use his primary weapon. This kills even stealth gameplay in many heists as people don't see the point to finish it in stealth Hopefully the dev will fix many many many issues in the game and add more QoL items for improving the game and lead the game to success though only time will tell.