So I was right after all. Always online crap. And what could possibly go wrong, lol

That won't go without an answer, NRS. Though, the response is already here. The game is doing pretty awfully on Metacritic in all sections.

Well, if they are going with this always online crap, this will be the last MK I've gotten. I like the game, but I don't need that crap in a game. It's stupid to make your game unplayable because a server is down or you don't have internet connection.
I was only able to try the game yesterday during the day, didn't have any problems. Going to see what I'm getting today.

The day that requires games to be always online is the day I stop gaming (or stick to my old games, the reason why I buy things on disc).

I found somewhat of a solution to this last night. Tried deleting and redownloading again, as well as the save data and that's when it hit me. Every time the game would load it would automatically preload once it connected to their servers, causing the issue to resurface again. I'm playing on the Switch, so what I did was create a new user and Nintendo account, linked it to the new user, started the game fresh and Kitana was back to normal. It also had Shao Khan, so if you're on a different console I'm guessing if you pre-ordered/purchased the premium edition, that the dlc would transfer over to the new user. Not the most ideal solution, but the best I could come up with. Sorry if you've already realized this, I can be a bit slow sometimes, but wanted to pass along the information just in case. Hope this helps until hopefully a patch comes out to correct the issue, but since it's tied to their server I'm not sure if that'll be possible. Also had reported this as a bug issue to their WB support page, so we shall see.