I finished the game once, have 2 co-op games running with friends, and just started a modded playthrough where the whole party is Artificers. I highly recommend giving some of the mods a try once you’ve played through vanilla. They’re super easy to install and add so much fun an variety.
As someone who dipped their toe into Payday 2 and is beginning to swim in Payday 3, I’m not shocked. Payday 3 is missing a lot of quality of life features that Payday 2 has, and has a lot less content. Plus, Payday 2 has been around forever and Payday 3 is fundamentally different enough that a fair fraction of folks probably just won’t ever feel any need to switch.
That said, I think Payday 3 has a better skeleton that Payday 2, especially for new players like me, and I’m excited to see it grow (and become something more than the minimum shippable product) over time.