The card roguelike Slay the Spire 2 is currently in early access. The developers recently released a patch with balance changes, which caused a wave of outrage — the game began to be actively criticized on Steam (especially by players from China), and as a result, recent reviews became "mixed." Not everyone agrees with Mega Crit's approach to balance tuning.
Valve veteran Erik Wolpaw shared his opinion on Slay the Spire 2 in an interview with PC Gamer. Erik is also currently playing Slay the Spire 2 and considers the balance "not ideal":
Co-op is just phenomenal. As with many things here, the balance might not be perfect yet. I'm not sure, but I think the two-player mode is the most unbalanced: it's harder to play with two, and easier with a group of three or four. This is my feeling, and I've heard it from others. But we still have a lot of fun playing, despite the difficulty. We played on Ascension 10.
However, Erik believes in the developers — he spent about 1500 hours in the original Slay the Spire and thinks that the Mega Crit team will refine the sequel:
There's still a novelty effect — it's still Slay the Spire, but with a lot more content and new elements. In terms of balance, the game doesn't quite live up to the first part yet. But that's even interesting, because I trust them: they balanced Slay the Spire 1 as well as any other card game. I'm sure they'll manage here too.
The developers of Slay the Spire 2 expect the game to be in early access for 1-2 years, but the timeline may be adjusted.