Recent reviews by Kobl

Great leap from the first game.
Fantastic launch from a small studio.

The spirit remains true and even stronger with this second title.

The live service unlock system might be obnoxious, but it doesn't hamper progression.
The game is well optimised and stability is good all things considered.

The core gameplay is fantastic and addictive. Eyes are on the dev team now to add features and balance updates to bring things up to par with the first game in that regard.

FOR SUPER EARTH

The 1.0 release feels like a beta.
They removed maps and features (game modes) without obvious explanation.

The AI is still fundamentally broken with unfair reactions. As bad as it was when I first picked it up in EA more than a year ago.

You still need AI mods to fix the game and the forums are still full of trolls defending the broken AI, because the devs ban any constructive feedback.

The devs have lost goodwill by lacking transparency on core concerns from the community.

Do not support this game with such a track record.

Subjective opinion here:
The ones controlling Void (devs) seem to be sniffing their own farts. They are suppressing people calling out their BS. They don't seem invested in making a game their supporters want, instead going for whatever 'vision' they are pushing and doing it in a very disingenuous way.

Brings back the satisfying gameplay of Battlefield 3. A true Battlefield successor.
This is what us Battlefield fans have been desperate for for so long.

Despite playing mostly like a Battlefield game, this game has its roots in games like Squad, and it combines mechanics from those games, along with features Battlefield fans have been begging Dice for for years.

It has a fast pace, with perfect TTK.
Gunplay is tight.
Sniping feels amazing.
Squad team play with classes is rewarding.
Vehicles are not OP, but fun and easy to use.
I can get into a game in less than 20 seconds.

I can hear the Battlefield 3 theme playing my head again as this game brings back those true battlefield moments :')

It breaks my heart knowing I'll never play this game for the first time ever again.

This must be one of the most profound exploration experiences in gaming this past decade. This game is a work of art, sown together with raw emotion and tasking you to unravel it. It beautifully guides the player through a mystery of a solar system trapped in disaster, without feeling linear at all. It gives you a spaceship and a solar system to explore, leaving the rest up to you.

Please... please play this game. You will never forget this experience.

Hands down the most in-depth and fun gun handling VR game in existence as of writing. If you like guns or FPS games and own VR, this is a must buy, even at double its current price.

Perfect for the casual target shooter or for the more serious gamer with Take and Hold (TnH) mode, a fast paced, roguelite gameplay loop with challenging bots and dynamic targets on a map of your choosing (CQB or open). Currently TnH is the meat of the game, with loads of modifiers to play with such as WW2 guns only, or only modern guns, etc.

With Anton, the single main developer, knocking out consistent updates for this game for the past 5 years with no signs of stopping (see his weekly dev blogs on YT), plus recent mod support, the content is almost limitless (read: ALL THE GUNS).

The VR platform support is very good. Controls and handling are very smooth and natural, with a bunch of tweakable input options to suit your play style, be in no fuss streamlined controls, or in-depth gun controls.

As a fan of the first instalment, I was really disappointed with this title.
In summary:
Almost all the new elements or modifiers added to the game does not add to the core experience. And the little that was improved, was completely undone by the fact that they turned the game into an RNG roguelite. Gone are the scripted, handcrafted levels. Now you will just be playing the same few rooms over and over. If you die, you need to try the whole set of levels again before advancing to the next set of random levels.

They made the core experience unfun and uninspired. I'm honestly quite shocked the devs made these mistakes.

Do not buy. Just go play the original again if you still have an itch.

More details (spoilers):
This part is less of a review, and more feedback to the devs.

1. RNG: Going for uninspired RNG roguelite levels instead of more scripted, handcrafted levels that made the first game so inspired was a big mistake. It makes the devs seem lazy.
1.1 One thing that made the original so fun is you could pull off these amazing stunts. Now it's too much of a risk. If you mess up, you have to do up to 8 levels all over again. Not fun. Makes experimenting unrewarding.
1.2 The game now uses a node system in order to progress. Each node has a random set of levels (8ish). If you die in any of those levels, you need to redo the node. This causes more frustration than a sense of learning to get better due to more than half the time RNG kills you instead of you making a mistake.
1.3 Game introduces modifiers ("hacks") given to you between levels in a node. You get a choice of two random hacks out of a pool of unlocked hacks. In theory these should spice up the game and give you more ways to play. But once again RNG messes this up. The modifiers are not balanced to begin with. Adding RNG to the mix makes it feel even more cheesy. Got bad hacks? Now you are forced to take the heal hack each time you get it in order to just stay in the fight. Got the killheal or bulletslowmo hack? Congrats you basically can't die.
1.4 The game also adds more "core" hacks. Where in the first game you get hotswap, now you also have katana mode and charge. But charge is just a worse hotswap. I found katana mode quite fun though. You start with a katana and you can recall it like a lightsaber to cut enemies along the way back. I found it more consistent and versatile than hotswap. You always start with a katana, and recall gives you a safety net to have a weapon in your hand at all times to deflect bullets.
1.5 Ironically the RNG does not give the game replayability, because you can't really experiment, and the levels are so boring anyway.

2. You want to replay anyway? Nope, they put an obnoxious 8 hour lock at the end of the game that you need cheat engine in order to skip. Seriously, who's friggen idea was this? Even if you want to go the story, fourth wall break route, fine, but make it so that the game uses the system time and a person can just adjust their PC clock to get past the time lock. Same point made, with much less frustration.

3. A lot of new enemy modifiers and mechanics simply detract from the experience and makes it unfun.
3.1 Adding exploding enemies and mines restricting your movement slows the game pace right down.
3.2 Adding unique boss enemies seems like a good idea. But they are invulnerable and very cheesy. You have no counter to them besides avoiding them, and even then, RNG can mess you up. Failed to throw your AR away before the boss hotswaps with you? Well tough luck now you have an invulnerable guy in your face with an AR.
3.3 The enemies which can only be killed by hitting a certain body part was actually the only good new enemy modifier. It forces the player to think more about how to approach a situation. Unlike exploding enemeies where it's almost always safer to just avoid them.

In the end, I do want more SUPERHOT. But the devs really need to go back and think what made the first game so good, and build on that.

Early access purgatory, Avoid.