I tried to like Defiance, after seeing it back on Steam as Free to Play I decided to give it a fair shot. It took nearly 3 days to actually play the game after installing it though, each time trying to play the server would be down, or hugely laggy which seems to be a common issue, so immediately I didn't have a positive outlook on the game and each day since, I've experienced multiple time-outs or severe lag.
I think the game has grand ideas, but ultimately fails on all fronts. The lack of having any indication of Monster Level/Ability quickly becomes frustrating as you breeze through a mission, to suddenly being one shotted because more players, or a particularly high EGO level player enters the area. Same with the open world pop up missions, the enemy level HP/Dmg output changes drastically but without giving the player any information -
A fair example of this would be the 2nd Base area, fairly often enemies will spawn in front of that base in Madera. Quite often alot of people will be in the base, often still - high EGO players around. So these enemies will be quite deadly for new players following the missions and reaching this area, whats worse is the respawn point is literally right next to the enemy spawn points../epic facepalm
Another stupid idea was long tedious driving around missions. I remember doing one mission that required me to drive over 6km - the entire time the map leading me in the wrong direction, through high level areas or into dead ends The driving itself is buggy at best, the driving mechanics seems to vary in terms of handling.
Upgrading items again, is a complete mess. Very little information given and more or less seems to be trial and error. You pay Scrip to buy 'time' to upgrade/mod weapons and most of the time, your wasting time and money as you have a nice weapon mod and a matching weapon - so you buy an extra slot or something, and nothing happens - or the weapon is in the 'matrix' but you can't do anything 'with' it until the time runs out. Its all unnecessarily complex and clunky, with some luck thrown in.
Another thing which is quite obvious is the pay-2-win aspects, Trion have quoted that the game isn't pay to win. But it is quite obvious, with loot boxes and $100 legendary weapon packs. Since actually getting better weapons in game requires huge amounts of luck. No 'auction house' luxury here, trading options are highly limited since most weapons/shields need a certain EGO rank.
The missions and areas themselves are very poorly designed, getting completely stuck on scenery is very common problem. Many of the missions have enemies spawning in thin air, often when triggering part of the mission requirements - this becomes frustrating especially if you don't know where they are going to spawn, or if 'more' players are in the area so the difficulty gets ramped up. The actual shooter part of the game is a mess as enemies frequently warp around due to the severe lag issues, making sniping near impossible sometimes.
Basically, I'm not surprised this game went free to play. As is, it is a mess but that being said, its just another one of those games that you either love it, or hate it. But honestly, if your in the market for a co-op shooter in this type of genre, Titanfall is probably the way to go.