Despite a lot of mixed reviews from the community, I personally think this is one of the most innovative games in the Doom franchise yet. It runs pretty good for me on my RTX 4060ti, never experienced any crashes, did have some temporary hitches that lasted a couple minutes when booting up the game and entering a level, but after that everything is buttery smooth. The price is also quite high, I own the premium edition for PC and collectors for console, and it exceeded $300 USD. The base standard edition price is currently $70, I'd recommend waiting for it to go on sale before buying it unless you are a crazy doom nerd like me. The game feels more like a $55-60 game imo.

GAMEPLAY
I'll admit, I was mixed about it first, but after siege part 1 things started to REALLY ramp up. Parrying still feels a bit weird at times since this is a doom game, but it is also refreshing in a way and is one of the only times I've really enjoyed parrying in a game. It feels very rewarding parrying enemy projectiles and causing them to fly back to the enemy and deal massive damage, and you can customize the projectile color too which is neat. The gunplay is also very good, and the sound design is so beefy this time around and I love it so much. The destructible demons add onto this as they make it feel like your guns are actually doing massive damage this time around. The one downside I have with the guns though is how similar to 2016, you can pretty much run through most of the game with a single one and rarely have to switch, and while it can be very fun at times, it also leads to me almost never using certain guns like the pulverizer, (which was featured heavily in the trailers and hyped up a lot might I add), impaler, and the grenade launcher. I'll probably find a way to use them more effectively at some point, but I do miss the feeling eternal had where it really pushes you to use everything you've got to take down the hordes of hell, but that's just my hot take. The boss fights are also LEAGUES better than 2016 and eternal, I actually really enjoyed them this time around. Difficulty sliders are also really cool as it adds more replay value for me and allows me to make fun little challenge modes for myself. One final thing I'll add is this game honestly like a hack 'n slash fps game, but it's really fun and unique in a way.

STORY
Unlike a lot of other fans I have always found the lore very interesting and I always wanted to see what it was like when the slayer was fighting along the night sentinels. While it's much more cinematic and the cutscenes are a bit longer, there aren't as many of the long cutscenes as people think. That aside however, overall the story was pretty decent, there were some twists that really caught me off guard in the later levels, and it's much more serious than the previous two games, but a lot of it is unfortunately kinda forgettable.

LEVELS
The level design is pretty open and has lot's of exploration, and you can usually do certain fights or objectives in whatever order you want, so if a certain fight is too hard for you, you can go do a different one first. This new doom game let's you explore new worlds and one of the later levels has a very interesting setting that's honestly pretty metal. The mech and dragon levels can be somewhat tedious but there's usually sections where you are on foot outside on the armor/not on the dragon that kinda balance it out.

MUSIC
Not as memorable as Mick Gordon, Andrew Hulshult, and David Levy's tracks, but it's still pretty good and fits the game. The only tracks that are really memorable is the menu music and some late game tracks.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Despite it's many gripes, Doom: The Dark Ages has been one of the best games I've played so far this year and is now one of my most favorite doom games. Id Software made a really bold move with this game, but I feel like people will love it, even if it takes time. It's definitely joining doom 64 and doom 3 as a new member of the black sheep of the doom franchise. As for how I'd rank it compared to all the doom games, I currently rank it 2nd place, right behind eternal. It might change depending on what happens in the future, and I'll update the review if it does.