(spoiler free review) this game and it's subsequent DLC are amazing and an absolute triumph in game design, it may be a bit pricey (it goes on sale 67% off fairly often tho) but with the sheer density of content being offered here it justifies it's price tag, especially the 20 dollar dlc.
i'll break my review up into two parts, the base game then the dlc so let's start with the base game.
doom the dark ages main campaign is great, the sheer variety and versatility of the mechanics offered by the shield, shield runes, the parry system (that works pretty intuitively with the INSANE amount of projectile variety that keeps things fresh and really fun), and the (actually good) melee are unlike anything seen in doom before (all the other doom games have such worthless melee), for better and for worse, it has a reasonable entry skill floor, and can go very high with it's higher level skill ceiling, contrary to what other people say, when pushed to it's limit difficulty wise (modified Nightmare) this game is brutal, and requires a lot of game knowledge and mechanical/technical mastery with your shield and other tools to succeed in, it's a long campaign, maybe 20-30% longer than Eternal's, packed full of cinematic cutscenes (that are cool but skippable upon replays), and some great music, so long as you listen to it objectively, cough cough, the dragon and mech stuff is cool on a first playthrough but does get old on replay, I personally like the mech stuff as a cool little minigame to break up the actual arena fights, and trying to blast through them is fun, it feels like a first person Punch Out at times, i think it gets a touch too much hate, but the dragon stuff is objectively boring, and only serves to get you from point A to point B on these HUGE maps (that are definitely intimidating on initial playthroughs but once you learn the pathing you wanna go on on those open maps, it becomes much more manageable, use the amazing mini map if you need to), it serves it's purpose, but it ain't much more fun than that, if you're gonna mess with the sliders at all bump the game speed up for the dragon stuff so it ends quicker, and boy, as great as this games combat loop and level design and artwork and mechanics are, the one area where it absolutely spanks 2016 and Eternal are in the boss fights, there's 3 main boss fights and 4 champion mini bosses that are all so fun, and really emphasize the stand and fight 1v1 nature of this game in a way that blows the previous titles and their, mixed bag of boss fights out of the water, dense campaign, justifies its price, great art and musical direction, and great arena/boss fights to boot, peak.
and the doom the dark ages revelations dlc is even MORE peak, not just in the sense that it's more dark ages, but in the sense that it takes all these fun and intuitive systems and gives you the shield 2.0 (aka the spear) and wow, the sheer amount of versatility and mechanical depth this new left handed weapon adds is insane, it doesn't work as an outright replacement of the shield, you need to learn how to quickswap between them and use them in synergy, but man, it is so fun the amount of options it gives in addition to supplement the shield, not replace it, and this dlc is just dense with several new levels (no more huge open levels, in this dlc everything is linear and layered with goodies and secrets and really fun puzzles that require both your shield and spear), new secrets and 2 new boss fights that are just as great if not better than the base games bosses, not to mention all the end game (aka post linear campaign) stuff that lets you fully upgrade your spear and work to unlock an additional secret uber boss and 4 master arenas that will whoop you if you don't learn how to use your spear, it is peak doom on top of peak doom, i can't even find much of anything to criticize, there's still minigame stuff that isn't the dragon and mech but it's pretty brief and spread out so, eh.
overall, as a complete package, this is THE best doom of the modern trilogy (as someone who loves eternal, check my other review), and it's such an amazing celebration of all things doom, i couldn't recommend it more, and man the 6 unique boss fights across the base game and the dlc are so good, you've gotta check it out if you haven't already.
