Hey there.
Hanged out a bit in stream earlier today and gave the game a go.
The difficulty at the beginning is fairly hard since you cannot see anything and have to rely on luck to find health/armor before dying. However it very quickly ramps down as you can leave armor and health laying around when your topped up on either and go fight the Z's and return for them later when you need them.
I think what the balance comes most down to is that you can walk the routes you know to be safe without any hazard or penalty to fetch up health and armor when you run low on either.
In the end what got me was a trap when I was getting too cocky and usually what got me in Nethack was something similar (stupidly trying to hit monster while the solution would've been in backpack the whole time).
Cheers and good luck.