Graphically, it's stunning, the environments are just beautiful and colorful throughout. The machine designs are still just as good and the characters in particular are really well animated.

Gameplay wise, it works well, but has some issues. The roll is a bit weak in favor of a clunky to use slide, and the machines track your movements very strongly. This is usually fine when fighting a single machine, but makes encounters against multiple (especially multiple big ones) an unfun mess, particularly at the beginning where you feel quite weak. Otherwise the general loop of exploiting elemental weaknesses and tearing off parts is still very fun.

The upgrade also systems take a bit too much resources, especially in the late game, but this is mitigated by the fact that generally weapons are still usable even if not fully upgraded.

The open world is fun enough to explore, though it feels like it has a bit too much to do. The game definitely has a bit of needless bloat, though fortunately a lot of it isn't required for all achievements, which is quite enjoyable to pursue.

I enjoyed the story quite a bit, it's not quite as strong and felt like a fair bit more cliché than zero dawn (the evil bad guys are very evil), but still entertaining. The DLC story in particular is very campy, in both good and bad ways, but has some great spectacle.

Overall, I had a very good time with this game, will probably go for a NG+ playthrough after a break.