Played the Beta last night, must admit the FOV was a bit of a killer - but overall, I have to say I'm pretty underwhelmed.
Granted, I'm not expecting wonders from a Beta... but the graphics seemed worse than the first, movement was slow and sluggish, weapon sounds were tinny and just... not impressive at all.
Granted, I know in Payday your first weapon the Amcar wasn't upgraded, but the main problem with it seemed to be running out of ammo, rather than an ability to kill anyone. I found I needed between 50/75% of a mag to down a single cop, unless I got lucky and managed to aim long enough for a headshot, without losing half my health in the process!
Also, the heist seemed very uninspired, and a very difficult map to work on given the area you had to cross with cops able to shoot from all sides behind cover, while you had none!
Hence despite being a reasonable FPS player, and being about level 180 in Payday, I failed the first heist twice, with another human player and 2 AI. There was a point where I'd been downed, and recovered by a AI player. Before I could get a mag into the assault rifle, I was down again because I was swarmed by cops.
Realistic perhaps... but this game has never really strived to be realistic!
