Destiny 2 did manage to fix a couple of small issues from the first game, but it’s otherwise taken several steps back. Its consumable cosmetics and loot box-style method of awarding gear encourages hoarding and disengagement from the end-game grind. Its failure to offer at least as many features as the original Destiny has unsurprisingly led to rapid onset of player boredom. Worst of all, its neutering of the PvE’s moment-to-moment gameplay has resulted in a sequel that just isn’t as much fun to play. Destiny 2 may indeed have a loot problem as so many are loudly pointing out, but that’s small potatoes compared to these major fundamental flaws.

There are a total of eight maps (nine if you’re playing on PS4), and five game modes. Supremacy, Clash, and Control are part of the Quickplay option, and new modes Countdown and Survival are part of Competitive. Unfortunately, there is no option to select the game mode you want once you select Quickplay or Competitive. If you really want to play Control, you have to hope that the game's matchmaking doesn't randomly throw you into Supremacy or Clash.

Destiny 2 has even managed to mess up its core gameplay. While the developers’ hearts were surely in the right place when they chose to streamline the gameplay in the name of accessibility and PvP balance, in practice most of their changes have done more harm than good. One can tell that PvP was the major focus, because the changes work quite well for it. No longer do players have to endure the frustration of shotgun metas and constantly getting mapped by sniper rifles. Reduced access to abilities and power/special weapons allows for slower engagements. They’ve opened the door for an improved Crucible experience. The problem is that these changes are downright awful for the rest of the game. As it stands, Destiny 2 DLC 2’s gameplay mechanics encourage the hoarding of abilities and ammo rather than their enjoyment.

The third night rolled around and with four of us ready to go we waited hoping the other two would join. They did not. Understandably so, Leviathan was proving to be slow going. Instead the four of us ended up exploring the Underbelly a fantastic piece of the raid that made it feel like not a total wash. The four of us could fight the enemies with ease and enjoy getting lost in a labyrinth of ship innards. As we explored we talked about what was difficult about the raid, the best ways to approach where we were and why Leviathan wasn’t proving fruitful. That’s the beauty of Destiny: it’s a fun game so long as friends are at your side, even if it's a bit soul crushing.

But anyway, the Inverted Spire is all about putting a stop to Protheon, the Modular Mind. To get to him, you'll have to fight through hoards of Vex and Cabal who are also fighting each other. They take you down into a dig site, where the Cabal have been looking for Protheon. It's pretty straight forward, but there are some cool set pieces, like the dig site itself, which has you dodging huge drills as you descend, and Protheon's temple, which changes as the fight goes on.

The mission takes you through a bunch of rooms and corridors of the Tower you've never seen before, teams you up with Cayde, Savala, and Ikora for small objectives of the mission, and has a few mini bosses that you'll fight your way through before taking on a sort of final boss. There's also a point where Amanda Holiday takes you up to a Red Legion ship to take it down. I won't go into too much more detail, but what I can say is that it was much more fleshed out than most of the original Destiny story missions. It's more reminiscent of a Call of Duty campaign mission in that it had other friendly characters doing things and talking to you as you go through the waves of enemies and various other objectives. Destiny just had the ghost talking you through more simplistic story missions that were repetitive and this is different and exciting because you don't know what's going to happen next.

Going deeper into the earth, we finally found what the Red Legion was searching for, Protheon, the Modular Mind. This giant bipedal Vex machine was the final boss and he was quite the challenge. All his attacks caused splash damage and a single stomp was enough to snuff out a Guardian. While he was quite the bullet sponge, Bungie did make it interesting by constantly changing the arena. A multi-tiered boss, Protheon would destroy the arena, sending us falling down to a new one. Each arena had its own little quirk. The second had a burning effect every now and again that would drain health. The third was surrounded by a lake of a milky white substance that would birth Vex grunts. It’s was an exciting boss battle that was more entertaining and engaging than anything in vanilla Destiny.

Having gotten fed up with trying to find an appropriate group to run with from Destinylfg.net, it was time to turn to the new feature that seemed like it would deliver better results: the new Guided Games. Guided Games makes players jump through some hoops with good reason trying to create the most toxic free environment for play that it can, it sort-of works. First, Guardians will spend a token to get into GG, then players agree to the Guardian Oath stating they will be friendly, helpful and dedicate the time. Then if you’re a seeker, which I was, it gives an extra-long waiting time to make sure that the player is in it to win it. My first group I ended up waiting over an hour for. After some general party chat confusion and actually doing the banner part without talking in the fireteam I had grouped with, we finally figured it out and we could talk. This did not help either.