**There is a TL;DR at the end if you don't want to read the wall of text here**
I feel it is necessary to write up some form of review for this game. It's a gritty cooperative shooter, in a grim dark setting with a cathartic combat system. Melee feels meaty, gun play is good. The music is phenomenal, and the world design is fantastic. Breath taking views and gritty, gory combat take the game a long way. But it is a hard game to recommend in it's current state. So I deliver these next parts as a warning.
It is quite unfortunate when I feel the game deserves it's mixed reviews. For all the good that the game stands on, it also fails to deliver in many other places. I am simple gamer, it does not take much for me to enjoy a good shooter experience. But when core mechanics of the game are off-putting, make you scratch your head and wonder why it was made that way, that should be a red flag. That the implementation of Talents that mean basically nothing and can largely be ignored is unfortunate. I stand by the belief that if you are to add something to the game, it should mean something. Small tweaks and changes to the formula that go largely unnoticed aren't really strong game mechanics to stand by.
Weapon shops that give random, lack luster options in hourly intervals (Set hours, mind you) leave you wanting far more. Want that boltgun? Got to wait three or four shop rotations to see if it even has a chance of spawning in. It's not fun. Some classes clearly get more love than others, as well, when it comes to weapons. The Veteran is stacked with options (Not all meaningful, mind you), where as the Ogryn has bare bone options that don't really do much special or good by comparison. Weapon stat balances are also all over the board, and largely are underwhelming and underpowered.
Difficulty balancing is out the window. A low tier difficulty can be either incredibly easy or unplayable based on RNG. Your team build does not matter, your weapons don't matter, you just walk into a situation that is so far out of your favor that you are forced back to the hub and have to run through it again. This is also scattered through all the difficulties. Specials and elites litter the enviroment as if they were on some clearance sale. You run into multiple incapacitating enemies at a time. Hounds that pin you down, trappers that catch and drag you away from the team, Mutants that charge and throw you around with little to no cooldown in between, and they always come in groups. And with the current setup of the game, not all the weapons for your chosen class are actually able to effectively deal with the sheer amount of armored targets that get thrown your way (Looking at you, Ogryn). Not to mention specific assassination target fights being basically a melee only experience, with even the meatiest ranged weapon doing scratch damage at most to them. Why does it work this way? Who knows. It's not very fun.
To add to the difficulty of the game, your buffer between being alive and dead, your toughness, is borderline useless. While improved from the Beta experiences, toughness is still a point of contention. With your health behaving so binary, being that you either have it or you don't have it, your only safeguard is the toughness, and it melts rapidly. Damage does bleed-through, so you are never really safe from damage to your health, and your toughness itself doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. Especially considering that there are damage bonuses from getting hit from behind. With the fact that enemies will ALWAYS, and I do mean ALWAYS, be behind you one way or another, your toughness barely means anything. So you are always on the verge of being ok, or being very dead. And with regenerating it being either through small amounts via melee, or taking cover behind cover that doesn't work most of the time, you really find it grating to experience.
Build variety only really exists in your weapon sets. And even that is limited, based on the classes I have played. The veteran gets many options, but many are lack luster, and pale in comparison to other options. Why take an autogun when an Automatic lasgun does the same job and better? Why pass up the boltgun or plasma gun when the other weapons hardly scratch the volume of armored targets that come your way? The Ogryn gets a limited selection, each doing pretty alright against hordes, but really lacking in the big target killing department. You got three options, a small knife, the Club and Shield, and a Grenadier gauntlet. Those do small damage to armored targets, and those are your best options for it. Talents are useless in most cases. A few of them are alright, but none of them really define a build. Sure, regenerating grenades is great, but it really is unfortunate that this is the strongest ability the Veteran really sits on. So many abilities would give you options and really deliver so little. They make no difference in the game. You play by your guns and your melee weapons, and that is that.
Even the classes aren't terribly varied from each other. They each compete for the other's role. Veteran and Pysker's main ability both target elites and specials. So you are constantly at odds with others of those classes to deal with them. Even as a coop experience, it makes it challenging when Psykers need those special kills to do any of their core mechanics, and the Veteran's ability really only matters against those targets. Ogryns and Zealots both do charges. It's nothing exciting, and it really only does one thing. So we have two of them. Why? Who knows. But we have them. And to make matters worse, is all these classes rely on a coherency system that is largely unrewarding to benefit from. Regenerate toughness? Great, you hardly notice it given the sheer pressure of attacks from enemies. Talents that are by effected coherency? They exist, and they do basically nothing special. And that's all that really matters. It makes little impact for a key gameplay component.
I come back to the point that the game stands on it's only good features. The gunplay and the melee combat do indeed feel meaty. Despite the weapon's not always pulling their weight when it comes to specials and elites, nothing feels as good as mowing down hordes and hacking and slashing your way through a tidal wave of bodies. That is a key strength there.
The Enviroment is fantastic. Level designs feel like the gothic setting that Warhammer 40k has always promised. A really good snapshot of what that looks like. From towering structures, to cramped hallways, giant machines to rudimentary servitors. They got the aesthetic down nicely.
And the music. A huge plus to the atmosphere. It hits hard and apologizes for none of it. The soundtrack is possibly the best part of the game. With specific themes for specific zones, and specific tracks for specific tasks. It really says something about the experience when you go into a mission specifically to hear a certain track again. I can't say enough about how good the music is.
I may have missed a few points here and there, and I have seen a fair amount of what others have to say as well, maybe some can say it better than me, so I won't deliberate much more from there. Things definitely need a lot of work.


So my TL;DR. Game has good parts to it. No question. I would recommend the game for that experience. The combat can feel pretty good at times, despite still needing balancing and some strong tweaks. The Enviroments and the music really take you in, and it's an experience to be had and absorbed heavily. But the balancing of difficulty, the talents, and the weapon balance are unreasonable. If you put it into the game, it should mean something, and there is a lot there that means NOTHING.
My recommendation comes with a warning: The game needs a lot of work still, and the devs have not inspired confidence in their ability to competently deliver on that. Time will tell, so you may want to wait until such time has arrived.

To start off, this game is pretty great. Surprisingly polished in a day and age where games tend to be released in poor conditions. Not going to say it's without bugs or issues, or that the game isn't completely infuriating and stressful at times. But as an overall experience, it was a well traveled journey, with lots to do and done in right ways. But do note that this game doesn't really hold your hand. It's challenging from start to finish, and you will have to put your brain to work with figuring out what you need to be doing at times.

TL;DR, Game is a solid, challenging experience. There are bugs and a few questionable mechanics, but the game still has polish and the gameplay loop is still good. Story is pretty engaging. It has my recommendation.

Covering some of the big parts first. Mechanics are a make it or break it point in a game. This game's core loop of stealth, cameras, and having your companion to help you navigate the world is pretty solid. It's a game that rewards patience, and punishes the lack of it. Plan your routes if you need to sneak, or keep an eye on recharge stations if you choose to run around with Freddy. Even if you get caught, you can acquire extra equipment to help you counter being hunted by animatronics, which can help you make a quick dash to a hiding spot. That being said, sometimes the stealth was quirky, non functional in weird ways. Sometimes AI got stuck on objects and were unable to follow you, sometimes you could be unseen behind some of the most revealing things ever, and be ok. But sometimes enemies could catch you through walls. But that did not happen all the time. These things didn't detract much from the experience in my book.
As you progress through the game, you eventually run into a bizarre experience with saves. So to start off, saves are infrequent, with autosaving occasionally happening. Getting killed could be a bit of a setback, hence rewarding patience and punishing the lack of it. You do reach a point where you CANNOT SAVE ANYMORE. The game basically doesn't autosave either (With at least one exception to that). It's annoying to have, as it's a bit of a cheap way to increase difficulty. No one likes making huge progress then getting killed and having to do it all over again. But there is at least one point that does autosave afterwards, which is an incredibly helpful thing for the difficulty of that part of the game.
Exploration and collectibles are a big part of the game. It's a big open Pizzeria with lots of little things to pick up and find. Some of them aren't useful to find, but are kind of cool little collectibles none the less, but others are more important upgrades that help you with your stealth and movement. They aren't really apparent in what they upgrade when you get them, but they are incredibly helpful to have regardless. And finding them is a very rewarding part of the exploration. And if you are a lore nut, there is tons of little snippets of information that you can find along the way to help you piece together some of the background of the game. Do pay attention to them, though, some of them hint at how to solve puzzles, deal with particular problems, and where to find things.
Now to graphics. Game looks great. And it has a lot of detail to enjoy. From the beautiful and well maintained upper levels, to the grungy and decrepit sublevels of the facility, you get a good feel of the world around you. However, I found that I needed to crank down the graphics to medium just for the game to run smoothly. It is not an entirely optimized experience, and you feel it. Framerate can hit you hard, and when loading into a save (Namely after dying), you can be left with a few seconds of hangtime before it begins, and a few seconds before the world actually shows itself. This is frustrating at times, because if you save near enemies, sometimes they see you before you can see them. And having seen other complaints in that area, your graphics customization is fairly bare bones, literally just being a few preset options, without individual customization for the best experience. Could be more in depth, but is passable. Additionally, a FOV slider would be nice, as I found it pretty jarring first stepping into the game, having come from playing numerous wide FOV games.
For Audio, gotta say, Five Nights at Freddy's has always had some solid ambiance, and this game is no exception. Audio is a big part of the experience. Obviously jumpscares have their audio, and being detected as well, but the world ambiance really sets up the setting. As you can hear it even through the music of some areas. In the arcade? Yeah you hear some energetic music and the sounds of all the arcade machines, but still there is that ever present oppressive audio that you would expect of a FNAF game. Stuff that keeps you a little on edge and puts you a little off balance.
Now to the story. Can't say much as I want to be spoiler free, but it is a genuinely enjoyable story. It has good pacing, and it keeps you engaged with it. And the game has some good length to it. Voice acting is pretty great throughout, so it really helps immerse you into the experience. And for being a Five Nights at Freddy's game, it is kind of nice to have a fairly upfront story to work with. Though there is still plenty of background detail for those that want to do digging. I am sure we will all be seeing hidden story videos cropping up soon enough.
Overall, a solid game experience that leaves me wanting more. And I do hope for more of it, provided that is the direction they want to go. But do bear in mind, the game is challenging, so be prepared for a bit of stress and frustration at points.

To start off, gotta say, this game is delightful. It's quirky, it's beautiful, and most importantly, it is fun.

On a technical level, probably the most polished new game experience I have had in years. Most of the new games at launch are riddled with bugs and glitches. As far as I have experienced, the game has been running completely smooth.

Onto gameplay, the combat feels like it flows well. Combos are fun and flashy to pull off (Using the shotgun to slam people into the ground is amusing). And as for an Open World RPG, I never feel like the Enemies ever outpace my gear acquisition. As I upgrade my weapons and level up, I never feel like the fights get bogged down by increasingly spongy enemies as I would in other games: your progress makes you feel more powerful as you play. Which leads me into leveling up. Your progress into each level is smooth and relatively quick. You never feel like you have to grind heavily just to get into the next level, just by playing the game, you flow from one level to the next without issue.

As far as the graphics go, the game is beautiful. Day to night, it always makes me want to stop and take it in. Each biome has something that really sticks out to you. From the grit and apocalyptic look of the Deadzone, to the lush forests in the north, the game is great eye candy. A filled world that awards looking around and exploration, and that is just for the views.

All in all, a game I highly recommend for all to try!