just stumbled across this on Reddit lol
I have no doubt this started out as a live service game but they made a hard pivot fairly late into development. Literally everything in this game is built around the concept - the 15 different currencies, the grindy nature of the gameplay, levels, damage numbers, outfit customization, co-op play, legacy dungeons but super shallow open world, loot crates, gear scores, crafting, the list goes on.
This was going to be DC's version of The Avengers untill, you know... The Avengers actually happened, completely tanked and someone in the WB Games office said "well shit, what can we do to salvage this without causing a controversy". So they cut their losses, took out the thing they thought was going to make them a billion dollars, axed the last-gen versions, spent as little time on optimization as needed and pushed it out the door.