Helldivers

Pretty good game, they should make a second one. Make it 3rd person instead of top down. They could call it something like Helldivers: Back 2 Hell, or maybe just Helldivers 2. I bet it'd have huge potential.

This is the only Helldivers available to buy and play in my country so that's an immediate thumbs up.

Even if it wasn't on sale, I would have bought this game 100 times over. Even though Helldivers 2 is out, this game is still being played, so multiplayer is still active. it's pretty much the same game as the second with a few changes, that I will list here in great detail:
TL;DR
Helldivers 2 is objectively the better game, but I would personally say that I prefer this game over its sequel. It's more accessible because the hardware requirements are significantly less. The community is less toxic, the missions are bite-sized and honestly more goofy to me, and I feel like I'm really part of a team.
SHARED CAMERA
This game is meant to be a team game. There is no going off on your own. There is a single camera and you can't split up. It was certainly a complaint I had initially, but after a day or two, you not only get used to it, but you start to appreciate the teamwork aspect of it. I don't feel like I'm getting dragged around by teammates because we have to stick together. It feels more like my fellow Helldivers have my back than like one of us is a weak link being carried around by someone else.
MISSION TIMES
Missions tend to last shorter here than in Helldivers 2. Most are completed in 2-15 minutes depending on the difficulty, type of mission, how many players are in the party, and how many objectives there are. I really enjoy that there is no mission timer in this version of the game, so you can comb every corner of the map looking for samples if you want to.
DIFFICULTY
The max difficulty level is 15.
REINFORCEMENTS
This one is a little tricky and a double-edge sword. On the one hand, there is no limit to how many times you can reinforce your allies. The reinforcement strategem does have a cooldown, but it's only between a 30-60 second-cooldown depending on its upgrade. The cooldown is individualized, so your party can take turns reinforcing each other.
That being said, if the entire party goes down, that often results in an instant game over. There are separate "auto-reinforcements" that you can earn by finishing main objectives or by playing solo, but you definitely have to be very careful and always prioritize reinforcing your team when someone goes down. Just like with the shared camera, I have grown to like this aspect because it adds to the cooperative aspect and values of the game.
UPGRADES
There is only one type of sample, and collecting 10 samples grants you one research point that you can then spend to upgrade any one weapon or strategem of your choice. You also gain one research point per level up. Personally, I much prefer this system because upgrading individual strategems offer very unique upgrades depending on what they do. For instance, the Recoilless Rifle at max upgrade ignores armour entirely, and the barbed wire defense doubles in size. You not only get upgrades faster, as they only cost between 1-4 research points each (between 10-40 samples per upgrade) with only 2 upgrades per strategem, but you can also prioritize the strategems you use most often.
PERKS
Whereas you had armour and boosters in Helldivers 2, here you have perks. Perks include heavy armour (all armour is purely cosmetic and offer the same benefits), getting up faster, gaining reduced cooldowns/call-ins for all strategems, quicker extractions, and immunity to environmental slows. This is also how you change your secondary weapon or grenades.
KEYBOARD CONTROLS
Aiming via mouse-and-keyboard is very confusing, and you cannot control how far strategems or grenades are thrown. Things are thrown normally based on what direction your character is currently facing, not where you are pointing the mouse. Additionally, the mouse cursor is a blurred black circle, so it is difficult for people like me who have vision issues.
EXTRACTION
The extraction ship is significantly bigger than it is in Helldivers 2. You enter the ship from either side, and the entryways are plenty big enough that you don't feel as if you are running over each other trying to get through a tiny door.
HELLPODS
I hate how the Hellpod drops were designed. Whereas in Helldivers 2, you rise out of your pod like an elevator, in this game, you have to climb into and out of it. So when you start a mission, you climb out to the northwest corner of the pod. You cannot control where your pod lands before it drops, and when playing multiplayer, some players will crawl out of their pods the second that a fellow Helldiver is dropping, right in the spot that they just climbed out of. It is avoidable, but you have about half a second to run or spring prone out of the way to avoid dying. Again, there are no limits on reinforcements, but this can still get frustrating because the drops seem to be randomized.
Additionally, a single Hellpod will instantly kill one of your vehicles. Yes, I know why they do, but with the very little warning you get for the pod drops (about 1 or 2 seconds), you can lose vehicles very easily simply by accident. I got killed by an incoming Helldiver once in my mech.
SINGLE-USE STRATEGEMS
Support weapons, packs (e.g. the jump pack, guard dogs), mechs, and vehicles can only be called once per mission. If your vehicle gets destroyed or your team runs off without allowing you to pick up your weapon after you die, there's no getting them back. It makes sense for balancing why the vehicles and mechs are single-use, but I once called down a tank in a level 9 mission only for it to be instantly destroyed by a falling Hellpod. Additionally, while they can be healed by the Angel Guard Dog, vehicles cannot be resupplied, so once your ammunition has been used up, they are essentially useless. Your vehicles can also explode upon taking enough damage, instantly killing you.
RESUPPLIES
The Resupply strategem must be manually selected before a mission, and it does take up one of your four available strategem slots.
WEIRD WEAPON HOTKEYS
Secondary weapons are (at least by default) bond to slot 1 while your primary weapon is bound to slot 2. This definitely confuses me and sometimes it will take me a hot minute to adjust my mindset.
GETTING KNOCKED DOWN
Thank god there is no ragdolling in this game, but if you take too much damage, you will be knocked prone. You have to hold E to get yourself back up, which does take 2-3 seconds, or your teammates can help you up instantly. There is a perk to get yourself up faster, and I believe the Angel also helps you get up faster, but it can get very annoying very quickly. It is just another incentive to always stick close to your fellow Helldivers.
HELLBOMBS
Hellbombs detonate approximately 3-4 seconds after activation. Two problems arise from this: If you're in a vehicle (most of them move pretty slowly), you're dead. If your teammates ran the opposite way of you, you're dead. Be very careful with Hellbombs, or make sure somebody has a strategem that can take them structures out without using them.
INFINITE STAMINA
To counter the getting-knocked-down part, you can run infinitely. And coupled with the lack of mission time limits, there is no harm in simply running away from a tough battle and coming back later.
9.5/10

A friend gifted me this game (and it's DLCs) after I played the sequel, and I gotta say it's pretty darn good. It's an older game, but it doesn't feel dated. I enjoy that missions are much shorter than HD2, and Samples aren't as much of a pain or priority to collect. There's no common, rares or supers here, just "samples", and that's fine with me.
The only bad thing I can say about the game right now is that it's player base is significantly smaller than HD2, but that isn't the game's fault, just the cruel flow of time. It's much simpler than it's sequel, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Sometimes less is more. It's still got the Helldivers spirit.
FOR SUPER EARTH!

Wow, great game. I hope they come out with a sequel. Hopefully in third person, better graphics, better enemies, and so on.
God Speed to the devs.

This game is better than HELLDIVERS 2.
I got this game after playing many hours of HELLDIVERS 2 because I wanted to see what the first game was like and I was blown away.
Here we have:
A funny story on global warfare with lots of in-game storytelling and a terminal with a encyclopedia full of lore.
A very diverse arsenal - We have lots of great weapons in this game that can be upgraded. The stratagem weapons are all very good, none of them are useless.
Amazing stratagems - Your stratagems can be upgraded too and all of them are good.
Perks that are comparable to boosters in HELLDIVERS 2, one perk that beats all is Stratagem Priority - Lowers the cooldown of all stratagems by 40%.
3 Fun and engaging enemy factions and boss fights.
A community-driven galactic war, every mission counts and you can win or lose wars.
Unique armors and capes for in-game events such as getting armors for winning/losing wars and getting capes for winning boss fights.
The cooperative aspects of the game makes it very hardcore, you cannot go by yourself and stray away from your team because the screen is shared between everyone, you will dive together or you will die together.
This game is not easy, it is brutal and can be overwhelming at first but it gets so much easier if you play with other Divers.
The balance in this game is very good as no weapon or stratagem is useless, every weapon and stratagem has their own niche and use case.
The only negative thing I can say about this game is how small the playerbase is, but you can still find many dedicated players diving 24/7 and the players you come across are mostly chill and love to teach people how to play the game.
This game has everything I want in HELLDIVERS 2. HELLDIVERS is amazing, genuinely one of the best co-op video games I've ever played.
Quit reading this and buy the game already! It is definitely worth it even at full price.

Came from the second game, very similar but very different at the same time. Can be enjoyed in small bouts unlike HD2, most missions take a max of 10 mins. Being able to upgrade individual weapons and stratagems is great. Worth a try if you're coming over from the second game.