Very dated but I still enjoyed it a fair amount. For some reason I can pretty easily play mediocre PS2/3 era games and have a lot of fun with them.

The first thing you notice about this game is how hard it's trying to be PlayStation's answer to Halo. The gunplay is functional, sure, but the health regen is awful and the difficulty is pretty all over the place throughout. Some levels feel like slogs where checkpoints are few and far between, and some levels take about 5 minutes. None of the guns are particularly interesting for a sci-fi game, but the weird setting is still kind of cool.

I found it pretty enjoyable that this game took place in a set of British towns and cities you never really see in games. It was a bit strange to do a Halo warthog mission at Cheddar Gorge. The level design was pretty cool, visually, but the gameplay is just nothing to write home about.

A perfectly fine Metroidvania that I felt was held back by an overbearing focus on a pretty boring plot and set of characters. The gameplay was pretty fun, especially the boss fights, but despite all the praise I felt it was still a pretty janky experience with a pretty unmemorable map.

Some of the upgrades were unique, like the shadow of Simurgh, but a lot of the smaller secrets and collectibles were completely useless. Most rewards for exploration were just currency which never felt valuable because you often got more simply from fighting enemies.

My main gripe I guess is the map. I felt like they could've done so much more with it yet most areas were just a variation on the same city or ruin themes. I really liked the sea area, but there was nothing else like that throughout the rest of the game.

I still had fun with it, but I don't feel like it comes anywhere close to Metroid Dread for recent Metroidvanias in terms of fluidity. I like short, polished Metroidvanias that gives you the gameplay you want in 8-10 hours. Longer-form games like Hollow Knight have worked for me, but almost always because they've had an interesting and varied world and an extra level of polish and care that this didn't really hit for me.

Still Ubisoft's best game since the PS3 generation in my opinion though.