Yeah, I struggled with ways to make hit detection feel good, I had pretty loud hit sounds, but they got really annoying on fast shooting weapons; though now that I think about it, just flashing the enemy white or something briefly would have been enough!
The shotgun is actually super powerful, but you have to get really close, each pellet does a decent amount of damage (a little under half of each revolver round, I think?) but it shoots a lot of pellets and has quite a bit of spread. In my testing, I would find myself ONLY using the shotgun because it was so powerful and it launched you, so there'd be no reason to switch haha. There is also some critical hit spots on enemies such as the little guys' eyeball and the skeleton's head (though there's no way to know that because of a lack of tutorial....).
Completely understandable points, and I appreciate you playing and giving feedback! Very useful info to know for my next game!