Thanks a lot for the feedback!
"I like the art style and sound effects were solid."
I'm very happy to know :-), being the artist, programmer and sound designer is not easy.
"I didn't look at controls and I had to quit and look at control list to figure out how to exit the first menu (why can't i press enter/space to continue on dialog?)"
I agree, controls on keyboard should be more intuitive/standard.
"I couldn't kill the metal soldiers."
Yes, you can't kill them, it will be more clear why when the story progresses.
I didn't like the 3 floating "assassin" characters
They are there to teach how the aiming mechanic (auto aim for the most distant enemy inside the circle) works. But it only actually works in the hard difficulty, and the hard difficulty is too hard at the moment, so I have think better about these enemies.
"I liked the lightning boss "
Nice to know! If you play the game a bit more, I would love to know how far you played and in what difficulty mode.