First of all, Single Player out the way:
Return of the Mammalians is a fun campaign that even in moments is better than octo expansion. The hub world and collectables is my fav part of it alongside prefering the story and lore. However, OE didn't do any of these poorly, wheres RotM does one thing very wrong. It doesn't have the variety of level themes and challenges compared to OE, as it tries to have standard levels like S1, which whilst fun fill up too much of the campaign for me. That creativity and variety of challenges wasn't as present. The one thing OE did bad that this game does great is boss fights with only one stinker!
Anyways, time for the multiplayer:
This game has my favourite controls in the series that pushes the movement based focus of the games to its limit, with overall amazing special ideas that don't reach the BS of some s2 specials (COUGH INK ARMOR) and with some amazingly fun and creative new weapon classes alongside new weapons within pre existing weapon classes! The season system feels like a non fomo approach to what free to play games do, giving you something to always work to without the pressure of fomo as the game will have the items available in stores 1 or 2 seasons after.
That being said, seasons have been too slow in terms of how much content has been added overtime, especially with weapon kits getting smaller and smaller. A big problem has been how inconsistent the kit quality has been alongside the poor stage design this game has been having, needing more options and openings. Map reworks took too long to happen and it still isn't enough to fix as they clearly have a fundamental issue.
A lot of criticism huh? And yet I still love this game, I adore it and it frustrates me at times how poor the update system has been despite me preffering it so much more in concept than how 2 handled it. It's a shame how many highs and lows this game has, as I adore this game and how queer and creative and FUN it has been.