Hades 2 was one of the few games I’ve ever gone back to after playing in early access. And I played it after every major release. I agree though, I was less excited when it was fully released than I probably would have been if I had waited.
Kind of similar story of ancient gaming tragedy, I was a young lad going for 100% in FFVII, and after spending however many hours getting everything ready, I saved right by Emerald Weapon, deciding to tackle him right after school the next day. Aaaaand then I came back to everything on the memory card being gone due to some dumb glitch. Still never beat Emerald Weapon.
I was really excited for that game and donated to the Kickstarter. Played it for a bit in one of the early releases, and it seemed kind of promising despite being very broken at the time. Booted it up a few years later and it was somehow way worse of an experience. What a huge mess of a game.
The utter lack of polish and adding in too many mechanics while not tightening up the core gameplay. They also did not have a versus mode where you could control the zombies while the survivors made their way through the map, which was in my opinion one of the most fun versus modes in any game.
I didn’t enjoy it at all, but you’re right about what people wanted. L4D is so simple in its core concept and streamlined in its gameplay, but it still has a ton of depth. That’s what people want.
Part of the appeal of Hades for me is how it forces you to learn how to fight with different combinations of weapons and modifiers, as well as how differently those weapons play.