Dune meets Metal Gear, and it works really well.
Took me a bit of time to get the hang of the gameplay since I don't usually play many games like it, but when I got the hang of things it was great fun. The stealth felt satisfying to pull off, and I liked the shield generator mechanic, essentially forcing you to sneak around and knife dudes a bit before you could start landing some sweet headshots. While a lot of the levels were clearly using placeholder textures, the models and textures that were there looked really good too, perfectly catching that ps1 style vibe, and the world and backgrounds really sold the game for me, especially the enemy spaceships and helicopters constantly flying overhead. I also really liked the depth and variety of things you could and had to do, like interrogating enemies for key locations, or burying yourself or your newly created corpses in the sand.
As criticisms go, I think my biggest one is the lack of checkpoints. What otherwise feels like a difficult but fair game becomes overly punishing when you have to start over from the very beginning every death, redoing a lot of gameplay. The sandworm that patrols the map also feels somewhat underutilized. While it makes for a cool visual, it never felt like it was actively threatening me. It seems like it only stays outside the outposts where the majority of the gameplay happens, and when you are out on the sand, the board you spend most of your time on hides you from it. In future updates, it could be fun to use it against the enemies too, maybe running around to lure it into them, or having it leap out of the sand to attack the helicopters. Finally, while the headshots with the rifle felt really satisfying to hit, I feel like the knife takedowns could use a bit more feedback, maybe a snappier animation or visceral sound effect would help.
Still, this demo was really fun, and the gameplay formula has a lot of promise. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with it in the future, and seeing a bit more of the storyline the demo hinted at. Good luck on the ongoing development!