First of all, thank you for the feedback.
The be honest, the combat isn't the game's main focus. I assume you're in Chapter 2, where your weapon is a pipe, which is a weak weapon and so that's why it takes so many hits to kill an enemy. You will eventually get different weapons in the later chapters.
About the options menu not in the game, I'm not sure what you're talking about. When you press 'ESC' during gameplay, you can clearly open a pause menu and there are options along with it. The only time yoy're not able to do that is when a cutscene is being played. Other than that, the pause menu should be accessible at all times.
Once again, thank you for the feedback, feel free to tell me more at anytime.