genuinely never buying a 2K game ever again. i don't just mean wwe 2k. i mean wwe, nba, pga, mafia, borderlands, literally anything tied to this ♥♥♥♥ ass company. this is THE most scummy, vampiristic, greedy, dollar-disrespecting product to ever be released. not just in gaming history, but in the history of man. lets list every reason...
1) this game stripped away every free superstar from the past 5 years and threw them into season 1's battlepass. wanna play as undertaker? too bad. you better start grinding.

2) theres a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ battlepass.

3) so far 2 passes have been released, 1st was full of everything that was in the game last year, 2nd has literally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nothing but more cosmetic ♥♥♥♥ from last year.

4) we complained that after buying the pass you still had to grind to unlock each superstar at different levels so for season 2 they made it so that they unlock for normal play instantly, but still left their myfaction cards for the last half of the battle pass. so you're grinding to unlock what you already ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ paid to unlock.

5) if you were one of the idiots that bought the $200 edition thinking it'd work like a season pass, too bad ♥♥♥♥♥, you still have to fork over for the pass each season

6) the $200 edition of the game is full of DLC packs composed of superstars and arenas who have been free for the last 3 games, so you spent $200 on what you already paid for last year. summerslam 88? $200. Raw is war? $200. the smackdown fist stage? $200.

7) the island was already going to suck... but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 9000 vc for A SINGLE ITEM. everything, and i mean EVERYTGHING costs a minimum of 9000 vc.

8) winning matches in the island only gives you 150 vc. that means to buy EVEN JUST A WRISTBAND you will have to win at least 60 matches per item, meaning just 1 outfit will cost you 180 matches MINIMUM (not including masks, clothing layers, tattoos, hair, etc) just for pants, shoes, and a maybe a top

9) myfaction is back

10) the artifically inflated prices of cards is back and all the cards are the exact same persona cards from last year.

11) the game has barely been out and myfaction has already incorperated live events requiring vaulted cards for events and rewards you will NEVER be able to unlock again.

12) in a shocking turn of events, this years myrise story is actually pretty good.... however they totally ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the pacing by FORCING you to needlessly grind out 12 stars worth of live event matches between EVERY STORY MATCH. so good luck getting into the story before being forcefully ripped out of the action every 5 minutes.

13)WHO THE ♥♥♥♥ ASKED FOR A BORDERLANDS 4 COLLAB?!?!?! WE THIOUGHT WE WERE GETTING THE HARDY BOYS THIS SEASON BUT THEY CHOSE TO DO A COLLAB WITH THEIRE 2ND WORST GAME EVER RELEASED.

14) if for some god forsaken reason you still decide to buy this ♥♥♥♥, don't make the same mistake we did by fully customizing your character in full from attire, to moves, to entrances and victories because i PROMISE you will eventually try to refund this game, and if you spend all that time customizing you will EASILY miss the 2 hr refund window. this game was literally designed to waste as much of your time as possible to force you to miss that refund window.

in conclusion, ♥♥♥♥ 2k. im tired of having my dollar be worth less and less by the second in this economy, and ♥♥♥♥ any money hungry-greedy-anti-consumer-bloated-live service-battlepass-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-corpo-vampire company perpetuating this type of consumer abuse. i don't care how much love i have for the wwe and the sport of wrestling entertainment. ♥♥♥♥ the entirety of 2k's existence. this type of monetization should be illegal.

I own this game for one reason and one reason only... To play stupid online matches with my friends and have a great time tag teaming against AI enemies. This has been a staple of our enjoyment for years, just making our own silly custom characters and downloading funny oponents from other creators.

The sole reason I am writing this negative review is because this has been ruined in this game. There is something about the AI opponents that is weirdly over powered, but ONLY in online matches. I created a pair of the weakest possible characters for my friend and I to wrestle so we could test this theory. I fought them by myself and absolutely mopped the floor with them. We played them together in an online match, and suddenly they are insanely skilled. Reversing almost every single move, starting massive chains that are near impossible to break out from, and being way stronger than the stats they were given justify them being. This alone ruins the fun of the game. All online matches for fun casual matches with friends have now turned into a nightmare slog. What used to be fun and balanced gameplay now feels like the AI just punishes you, no matter what character and what OVR stats they have. This needs to change. The online play aspect is completely ruined by this insanely unbalanced AI implementation.

We have tested this repeatedly over the last few weeks and it has made the game impossible for us to enjoy. Everything is set to give us as much of an advantage over the AI oponents as possible, but it doesn't matter. They play like they're 99 OVR superstars despite being rated at only 30 OVR.

This completely ruins all enjoyment we've had with this game.

The Gameplay itself is fire however the preditory monetization does not match a $70 game triple AAA game but instead that of free to play Gatcha game on your phone, FIX THE MONETIZATION OR MAKE THE GAME FREE TO PLAY.