First, if someone suggests this game handles coop poorly, remember next to nobody even attempts coop in iso crpgs. To me whatever flaws it has and it has some, it is still the best coop iso crpg experience you can have.
I am more of the school of thinking that if you're going to do something, do it right. I am not just going to give Larian a pass because they bothered to implement multiplayer into their game, especially when:
1) They billed it as a major feature of this game. And if they're going to do that, then they should do it well. Simply allowing 2-4 players to exist in the same game doesn't cut it. I'm not suggesting that's all D:OS 2 offers on the multiplayer front, but I feel like you're suggesting we should be thankful just to have that, and everything else should be considered a bonus (and the flaws ignored).
2) A lot of these are complaints are based on common sense expectations. If (for example) the players in your story are tasked with finding a lost sheep, and they return together with said sheep, it makes more sense for the quest-giver to realize that everyone present was involved in finding the sheep and not just the person who happens to be speaking. This, by the way, was a quest from the original D:OS that (originally) resulted in only one person receiving a huge positive attitude adjustment with the quest-giver instead of the entire party.
3) A lot of these complaints are based on shortcomings Larian already resolved in the first D:OS, but then allowed to return in D:OS 2. The above issue (with the sheep, and all quests like it) was corrected post-launch in an update after the reasoning was argued to the developers. And yet here we are again in the sequel, reversing that decision for no apparent reason and doing things worse instead of better.
If the developers wanted to focus more on a competitive instead of a cooperative experience, then it is what it is. But, by that token, the co-op experience is obviously going to take be hit. The more they move away from cooperation and towards PvP, the more subpar and frustrating the co-op experience becomes.
I am not suggesting there isn't room for both options to exist in the same multiplayer game, but it requires adequately supporting both play-styles and not gutting one at the expense of the other. You can allow just one person to be the hero of the story, and you can also allow the party to share in being the heroes of the story - maybe ask the players which method of multiplayer (co-op or competitive) they would prefer when they start a multilplayer game? Or handle it through creative dialogue choices:
1.
"Good news! My comrades and I have located your lost sheep, and we came back here to bring you the fair tidings together."2.
"I and I alone was able to locate your lost sheep, no thanks to these misfits behind me who continue to ride my coattails and make every effort to steal my thunder."
