I agree with everything you said about Helldivers 2. I generally avoid online multiplayer games, even co-op ones, as I don't like playing with randos, but HD2 truly feels like a team effort every time I play, and there's so much variety between factions, enemies, and difficulty, that I am happy to continue playing it over and over again.

Dragon's Dogma 2 has also put its hooks into me. I really enjoyed the first one, and the second one definitely lives up IMO. There are valid criticisms about the frequent low level combat and lack of enemy variety in it, but it honestly doesn't bother me. The more rare enemies show up just enough that I don't feel like I'm only ever fighting low level enemies, and the harder ones are a genuine treat. It's also fun to find a new enemy type that is particularly rare and discover the reason for it is because they will absolutely stomp you unless you're pretty high level. Beautiful graphics, fun world to explore (I'm particularly fond of the caves), and quests that don't hold your hand every step of the way (although, on occasion, I wish they would hold my hand a little more). I do hope they add a setting to reduce the pawn dialog to get rid of idle chatter, but I know the last patch is supposed to reduce the frequency already. I haven't had a chance to test it out yet to see if it's a significant improvement. I also really wish there was a way to tell what time of day it was since you will get missions that tell you you have to do it between certain hours, or worse yet, missions that don't give you a time frame and you just have to stand there and wait. When an in-game day is 45 minutes IRL, that gets old very fast.

Edit: omg, it's the menu background. There's a huge radial clock graphic in the background of the pause menu...

I’m semi-playing Alan Wake 2, just not a lot of time sadly.

Why you should play it;

The game is visually beautiful but the best part is the story. The story slowly unfolds and its really grabbing you. It gives you bit by bit.

You don’t need to have played Alan Awake 1, you could look up a 10 minute recap on YouTube.

I finally picked up Cyberpunk 2077 after the free trial a few weeks ago and I'm having a great time!
I'm about 25hrs in and I love the openness of the world so far, it feels like a slightly jankier GTA, with interesting builds / RPG aspects, tons of distractions / side content and (so far) a compelling story.
It's your typical CDPR polish, so it's stable enough, but there are still issues and performance troubles (playing on Series X, PS5 is better from what I've seen).

If you can find it for $15 USD (disc), I'd say it's well worth it. The Ultimate Edition is $60 USD (what I got) and Phantom Liberty is even better story-wise from what I've gathered.

I'm playing Shadow Tactics, currently on PS+

Also mixing in a gradual play through of Cloudpunk, once it gets to nighttime and my sleepy brain can no longer do tactics.

I got back into Monster Hunter World, haven't played it since they released Deviljho in the base game so I have a lot to catch up on. Currently HR 87 and holding off going to the expansion since I hear any gear in Iceborne is completely OP so I'm trying to milk the base game as much as I can.

Why you should play it

1. You like boss fights
2. You like grinding
3. You like creating multiple load outs
4. You like memorizing attack animations
5. You like mastering playstyles
6. You like the gamer high after lots of suffering

Guacamelee 2. Bought it on a whim and enjoyed the heck out of it. Now working on hard mode to platinum it. Get it if you like metroidvanias and quirky humor.