This is an indie game that wears it's inspirations on it's sleeves and costs less than a restaurant meal. Those inspirations are Risk of Rain (2), Vampire survivor...likes??, and movement shooters (The Tribe series movement especially comes close).
You can spend as much time as you want playing it, and it'll be fun, because it follows that old John Romero philosophy:
"Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."
And, in a way, that's true. But don't trust John Romero to lead a good D&D campaign.
Anyways, If a game is engaging enough in gameplay alone and you can play it as much as you want; What's the downside here?

And those inspirations- ARE inspirations! This Dev sat down, studied sources, Developed a game that was as fun as could be made, released it, and it rocks. It's a bit rocky, but it rocks and usually rolls. Don't expect consistent 60fps.

Get-Out-Of-Hell Tackle-Basketball.
6 Words and All you need to know this game is good. Story and game-play.
That, and this was the studio who made Bastion (Banger Story & Original VGM) and later Hades (Masterpiece)

It's good

You should know it's good. Go listen to the Soundtrack on spotify if you don't think you want the game, and reconsider that opinion.

If any game should get it's own room in a museum, it's Outer Wilds.

It's not just a game.
It is literally a work of art. A thesis made by graduate students, and then completed.
It is also my favorite game.
This game is not JUST a game. It's art.

This game is so good at delivering a fully self-encompassed story I legitimately categorize it as a work of art.
Not ironic "Video games as art" jokery.
This game, and Outer Wilds, should get museum displays. Because they're not just great games. They're a legitimate WORK OF ART.

It was a great game! If you ever imagined a fight scene, or parkour scene, or anything set to music in your mind and wanted to make a game out of it, this game does that at all times. Invaders Must Die was a really climactic and incredible climax leading to the end of the game.

If Microsoft (bethesda) wants more award winning games, I'll probably only be buying 'award-winning' games from them (We'll see how long that takes)
What probably would have made an award-winning game is hiring the couple more people and giving just 2 more years to the studio that took about 5 years to develop a game that blew up and won awards with no advertising. But instead, they were shut down, because microsoft doesn't want to hire ANY more developers, and anything longer than a 1 year dev cycle was too long (That's INSANE - unless you're an investor who wants to see single year returns on investments)

Condolences to the devs, and whatever are left still working at bethesda probably got placed on Fallout 5 so that microsoft can maybe see some return on the Fallout TV show by 2028 instead of 2030.

Updated, Retroactive review:
It feels like Dragon's Dogma 2. Not like the second Dragon's Dogma, but like Capcom decided to make a second Dragon's Dogma.
They made the same mistakes (Fast travel, microtransactions, performance).
And they even made the experience less deep (Fewer unique monsters, it feels like more were removed than added)

So, If you liked DD:DA, You'll like Dragon's Dogma 2.
And if you didn't like DD:DA, you still won't like DD2.


Man, it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SHAME that microtransactions were put in dragon's dogma 2. Because as someone with >150 hrs in dragon's dogma: dark arisen, I can tell you that nothing about the game's design was changed to accomodate the microtransactions. In fact, the original game had a worse microtransaction problem, as you could buy things such as the "Bitterblack armor pack" straight up providing you with better gear. (Before it was put on steam)
Of all the DLC and Deluxe items, only the portcrystal is truly useful for providing an extra fast travel destination - Something that is important, but there's tricks even in the original game to circumvent the rarity of portcrystals -- Place one down, go to a village, put your stuff away and rest, go back to where you were now in tip-top condition and pick it back up.
There is an increased barrier of entry to fast travel in dd2, but that's because ferry-stones cost a bit more than they used to -- and you can't even buy those for real world money. There's a good chance that a player playing dragon's dogma 2 would never even miss the opportunity to have an extra destination available to travel to.
But, There's also the fact that there are seemingly 21 pieces of DLC to be bought, with only 1 (the portcrystal) providing ANY advantage. The fact that there are 21 pieces of DLC on the store page does SO MUCH damage to the games image in comparison to the fact that I believe the microtransactions weren't even considered when designing the game, because even the original game heavily restricted fast travel.
Of all the actual issues this game has, I believe the two bigger issues are pretty blatantly obvious -- performance issues (especially in towns), and DOUBLE DRM for a singleplayer game.

Beat the game on my second run! it's really fun though, and there's a whole challenge section after.
If i beat the game in only an hour... i wonder how fast i can blaze through these?
Wonderful game