I recently fell in love with Doom: The Dark Ages (my first Doom game!) and quickly proceeded to play both 2016 and Eternal.

I'll just say this right away: Doom 2016 literally walked so Doom Eternal could run.

2016 is a great game (I had previously watched two full playthroughs), but I really did not enjoy playing it myself. The point of this review isn't to dunk on 2016, but it's easy to see how its foundation led to the next game's success. Both games demand constant movement and while I felt I was never going fast enough in 2016, Eternal blesses you with a double dash and some other bits that also greatly aid in mobility (love you, meathook). It also has some much needed quality of life improvements such as your chainsaw now being a button press (instead of a weapon you need to take out) and the inclusion of extra lives to keep you in the action.

Eternal's combat requires some serious focus, but once you get the hang of it, it's such a sick flow state. Every weapon has a purpose and even someone like me, who can't do quick swaps with the number keys (small hands!), can still easily use the weapon wheel to get the job done. It's super satisfying being able to confidently use the rest of your toolkit, too- flame belch for armor, chainsaw for ammo, grenades for crowd control, and a certain something else for "I don't want to deal with you", lol.

I also loved that the missions were more colorful and varied compared to 2016- the art team did amazing work. The Fortress of Doom was great for adding a breather in between missions and I personally really enjoyed the inclusion of more lore to pour over. I'm currently playing through the DLC and am having a great time with it!

I'm late to the Doom party, but if you are, too, then I highly recommend checking out all 3 in release order so you can fully appreciate the growth of the team at id Software. Each game offers its own playstyle, but the level of polish gets better and better with each entry. It's like that Ed McMahon meme where he increasingly gets more excited, lol. Regardless, they're all high quality FPS games and your favorite will come down to personal preference. Dark Ages has the top spot in my heart, but Eternal has been super fun to play, as well.

satisfying

It's alright — [6/10] Very formulaic and repetitive. Don't recommend because it forces you to create a bethesda.net account, opting you into ZeniMax data collection program and everything it implies. I find it quite unacceptable in a paid OFFLINE product.

Combat is good but very restrictive in terms of your approach.
Shooting is fun and weapons couldn't feel any better.
Enemies are diverse, distinct and immediately recognizable. Bosses are awful.
Music is very good but feels samey at times. It also doesn't mix well with in-game sounds.
Sound design is alright. Many bits are clearly made to sound impressive and over the top, rather than to make sense and be appropriate to the action it portays.
Environments are okay. They are artistically overdone to the point of not being memorable, except for their color palette and primary theme.
Levels themselves are laid out as traversal puzzles, which is honestly an interesting design choise. Largely a preference thing, so hard to judge.
Secrets are disappointing since they're not secrets at all but points of interest signified by objective markers.
Plot is just there. I never felt compelled to watch cutscenes and I don't feel like I missed something by skipping them all.

"Gameplay loop" is the name of the game. It's very formulaic in everything it does and you'll find yourself repeating the same loop in no time, despite playing seemingly different levels and progressing the story.
This game is laid out like this: small combat encounter at the beginning -> short traversal section -> arena-like combat encounter -> puzzling traversal section -> arena-like combat encounter (again) -> puzzling traversal section (again) -> big fight (either a boss or an arena again but bigger). All levels are like this with a few small groups of enemies and "secret" branches sprinkled in between.
Combat itself is very repetitive as well. In the initial few hours of this game you're bombarded with tutorials that invariably say "This is the right way to play the game", and there is indeed a right way to play it. It also means that if you choose to deviate from that pre-designed and well thought out formula you're needlessly going to create more friction for yourself. "This enemy requires such-and-such approach", "Shoot this enemy in X weak spot with Y weapon", and if you choose not to, you're quickly gonna hit the wall. Each aspect of combat is made to be useful, or worse, necessary to use, by bending the whole system to artificially create a niche that a certain tool or weapon fulfills. In this design approach, Doom Eternal is very similar to toddler shape sorter toy. Star goes into a star-shaped hole, cube into a square-shaped hole, etc... Marauders and bosses are a deviation from this formula, but not in a good way. They're essentially whack-a-mole.
There is no real player agency because best outcomes and ways of achieving them are always predefined; your success depends only on how precisely you execute the intended approach. Needless to say that there is no room for strategy at all. The "micro-desicions" that you might hear about in other reviews are not desicions at all, but rather appropriate reactions. Somewhat like in Skinnerian operant conditioning. There is also no resource management at all because each encounter spawns fodder enemies indefinitely and the game refills your chainsaw for free. Effectively you have infinite ammo pool as long you can chainsaw someone — and the conditions are always met, even on boss battles.
Worst yet, after adjusting to the game's rules you'll quickly realize that it has only one type of challenge to offer. Namely, arena combat that requires you to constantly switch weapons, chainsaw fodder enemies for refills, and constantly change position.
It is evident that Doom Eternal was designed with only one combat scenario in mind. It looks and feels great but gameplay-wise gets stale fast, in my opinion. It might as well be your cup of tea, so get it on sale if you really want to try it. There is a way to bypass bethesda.net requirement with Windows Firewall and a short command in steam launch parameters.