huh.
Let's start with the positives.
It's excellent at nailing down a Cruelty Squad-esc style that's still unique, the graphics and architecture is very reminiscent but still that little bit different from its inspiration.
Its music, while not going hand in hand with the style, is still quite the bop.
It's mostly bugless and it's quite polished in its gameplay elements.
I liked the intro, but then the menu was a little bit rudimentary, which is fine since this is still early.
Now, unfortunately:
What immediately stood out to me (other than the lack of pre-instancing) was the weirdly weak gunplay; the pistol not feeling punchy, the Uzi being borderline unusable due to recoil, the SPAS requiring being precise (which is not how shotguns are balanced), and grenades can't be thrown.
This is exacerbated by the high (and seemingly unchangeable) sensitivity and the requirement of absolute precision (which may be a Cruelty Squad thing).
The AI also bugs out at doorways, meaning that you always have to trade health...or snipe.
But the most fundamental weakness is the misunderstanding of what an Immersive sim (or actually IMERSIVE SIM) is.
An Immersive Sim isn't just having two doors to the same building, or some windows; it's having a glass roof, a breakable wall, a tunnel, and the two doors and windows.
An Immersive Sim is capitalized on player choice, it's named by the sentiment "Hey can't I just do this?" and letting the player do that.
I don't feel free here, I feel like I can snipe some of the people outside, head through doors and shoot people through windows when I can.
And look, none of what I just said are "bad game" things, but they are "bad Immersive Sim game" things.
Overall
It's pretty good, it does a lot of things right, I'm certainly excited for where it goes, but it's missing what it's aiming for.