There was a couple weeks there where I was playing this pretty compulsively. The moment to moment gunplay feels fantastic and the baddies are interesting and varied. I even didn't hate the crafting system very much which is about the highest praise I ever give a crafting system. At least on the difficulty I played on, there was no real penalty for dying which I found to be a nice tweak to the Souls formula; I felt much more free to explore.

Unfortunately, exploration was consistently unfulfilling. I really dislike the randomly-generated levels. It's never bothered me in 2D games like Diablo or Dead Cells. But in full 3D it really drives home what artificial nonsense these spaces are. There's no sense of place; you can't tell if you're in a room or a hallway most of the time much less distinguish between dining room, bedroom, bathroom, etc. It's just wall textures and decorative doodads strewn haphazardly about. From a gameplay perspective this actually kind of works; the environments just sort of melt out of focus and it's like fighting monsters in a featureless void with no distractions. As background these levels work great, but as a setting, they fall short.

Eventually I hit a boss that was a huge difficulty spike and it didn't feel worth it based on what I'd seen so far. I'm pretty sure it gets better further in, so I'd be interested in returning to this again especially if I find a co-op partner; I bet it's a whole different experience with friends.