Ok, I have been 5 hours in. Got even more impressed:
-Enemy AI is little weaker than I thought at first. They can flank and point blank one hit kill party member forcing a mission restart, but sometimes they end their turn in an open or don't shoot. Enemies also seem quite weak at strategical thinking and not all of them on map attack at the same time.
-As most enemies and player can't stand more than 2 hits, positioning is vital. Fighting is deadly and fast. Enemy can quickly turn tables with a good shot.
-Encounter design is fantastic. Had a rescue mission which looked as it was supposed to be done with minimal killing. Game respected my choice to kill everybody and after eliminating everyone on the map mission was successful without a need to complete an objective of opening the prison doors. Had an optional mission which starts the player surrounded and outgunned. It was thrilling and challenging. Maps are small, often reused, but different enemy placement makes encounters feel distinct.Big number of covers and hight places offers many approaches on how to tackle objectives.
-Game is hard on hard
-Those card abilities are interesting. You can take 5 of them on missions. Depending on which one you have chosen, you can get a passive buff on top of their standard uses. I suppose those bonuses are poker inspired.
-Rotating camera is horrible. Don't understand why they can't bind it to the mouse. It's worse than Wasteland 2 camera. Also when the enemy from different hight attack, camera should change the height, now it is always on the same level when it was left during player turn.
-Height seems to influence aim and range.
-Enemies can do overwatch. It looks player cannot use it. I had many times when I was begging for overwatch.
-The biggest surprise: CYOA. This part is good enough it would be acceptable if it was a game in itself. There are many C&C moments which actually include consequences! Game autosaves, so I didn't retry anything but results were enough specific it seems highly unlikely both options led to the same outcome. In scenario I played the main goal was collecting gold, which was quite complex with many tools, ways to do it and hidden mines. Got even an optional mission.
-Writing and story are really good. Love the character of the devil who is a mysterious, well dressed gentleman who appears and disappears on the whim tempting people.
-Game has a nice aesthetic and art direction.
-Looking at credits, game was done by about 10-20 people team. BTW: what are
Darkzone doing in special thanks?
Game is really, really good. I am genuinely surprised something so great was under everybody radar to the release day. Worth checking out.
Nice C&C:
Good writing: