Finally finished it last night. I was essentially speedrunning the game by the end, zipping past enemies with the speed upgrades and Blink Phantom Shift, a remarkable departure from my early playstyle of scouting, carefully placing turrets, planning my approaches, etc.
Died a bit more frequently in the last part of the game, as I began losing patience and doing more cowboy shit. Still, even rolling with the punches I had about 15 Medkits, 10 Psy Hypos and Neuromods left unspent. As far as materials go, synthethic was actually my bottleneck, while I had over 30 mineral cubes sitting in my inventory; this was due to relying mostly on turrets and Kinetic Wave/Phantom Genesis, only using guns as backup. RoSoDude's changes to resource management were pretty spot on, I think, I wouldn't want that aspect to be any harder; I'm pretty much a resource maxxer from having spent so much of my life free time playing spreadsheet games, survival scavenger roguelikes, etc., it's a good thing I didn't struggle too much.
Neuromods were still given out like candy. I don't think the mod made any change to that. For a first playthrough that works alright, because you get to test different playstyles, but it's not really good design. Arkane wanted the player to see all the cool shit they did, but in doing so they pushed the game closer to Dishonored, where you have 10 hammers for every nail. Not to mention that some abilities make it more expedient to just run away and past enemies, rather than engage with the game. That's what I did when the game started throwing bullshit at me by the end.
Let's get the negatives out first. I didn't like the Nightmare, it feels tacked on, like one of those mods people make after playing RE3 once. You mostly encounter them during level transitions, which means you can just go back, or sit around patiently if you're in a good spot. Good opportunity to stretch your legs, take a piss/check you phone, I guess. You can also make a thread on Reddit about how it's "terrifying" for updoots.
Backtracking was tedious, because it felt like more of the same but the enemies had been level scaled. Lack of enemy variety doesn't help, either. I don't want to fight another Weaver/Telepath and two Voltaic Phantoms just to get an item for a side-quest. There wasn't enough content to hold the areas together. A seamless transition world, where you could unlock different pathways between locations, similar to the GUTS, would've made it more interesting. The redeeming factor is the ability to travel outside the station. The Talos exterior truly elevates the game to a different level.
It was also a lot more janky than I was expecting. I kept getting stuck in weird places(WTF is wrong with grav shafts?), I had items and people disappear while dragging them, fortified turrets evaporating after the reactor "reboot", several missions which I couldn't complete due to bad scripting. I basically had to quicksave before doing anything "physics" related. And no, this wasn't because of the mod, because I saw threads from 2017 talking about this stuff. What the hell, Arkane.
Overall, I'd say there was a proper "survival horror" experience until you get the Psychoscope; still a pretty good ImSim with horror elements until Arboretum; after that, a gradual decline in quality until you meet Alex, where it turns into total bullshit. Despite all these faults, it's still a pretty remarkable game.
I really liked the endings. The choice after the credits is genius, because it recontextualizes everything you did before and there's no fixed meaning, only what the player truly believes. Almost no RPGs acknowledge that the player can be good for other reasons. The sheer nihilism of saving everyone only as a ruse to escape the simulation, then immediately turn on humanity. Has any other game gone this far?
