It is pretty literally Helldivers 1 in third person, which just makes it even more chaotic because now things can sneak up on you. If you found the first one too difficult this is just as hard, if not more so because of the camera change.
Had to check if this was a throwback to the 2006 game of the same name but it appears to be unrelated.
My understanding is that the first expansion fixed many of the launch issues; I played it a ton in between the second and third expansions, and while it wasn’t a AAA game, it was still a very enjoyable sandbox. Watching the IS map evolve over time was great, and eventually the whole thing turned into 'mech Pokemon, which I got sucked into but could be very dry. It was pretty far from MW3’s crafted campaign, but the first expansion did add a number of short and sometimes memorable mission chains all over the map you could run into, giving a bit of that campaign story experience. The second expansion added another campaign you could choose to pick up, but I never did so I can’t comment.
I would just not continue the Horus Heresy series, it has some gems but your time is probably better spent on non-Black Library series, or at least other 40k series. The only two I’d endorse of what I’ve read are Betrayer and Prospero Burns, though you may not be a fan of the latter since it’s Space Wolves focused, and Leman Russ is probably one of the least consistently written primarchs throughout the heresy even though he’s decent in that book. If you do continue then I’ll at least pass on the advice I’ve heard to avoid any Salamanders or Vulkan focused novels because they’re supposed to be extremely poor.
Given these are basically just updates to the existing starter sets using sprues out of the Leviathan box instead of the Indomitus one, I’m not surprised they’re a bit wonky. It is interesting to see which characters are being put in the box though, since those generally stayed in the starter sets and didn’t get separate releases unless they were different sculpts, or just haven’t had separate releases at all like the Necron Royal Warden. If the same holds the very oddball Winged Tyranid Prime might be staying in the starter boxes, which is probably for the best honestly.
Don’t worry about it, sh.itjust.works is a popular instance and Beehaw just want to do their own thing. Unless there’s a specific community hosted on Beehaw that you really want to be a part of you probably won’t notice, as most popular subjects have communities on other servers.
The Waaaghon?
You’re dead on. Sadly the game never explains it but you’re really not meant to shoot everything on the map and that’s what every new player is doing right now. Navigating around patrols to reach your objectives and knowing when to disengage and circle back when you’re being overwhelmed are the real core of the game.