Bottom line: Great from the get-go, relatively fun for 15-25 hours, turns repetitive, grind, disappointing ending.
Did two loops, one in vanilla and one in 3rd person (modded) settings. Dopamine hits real hard during the initial phase(s) of the game(s). Play, new stuff, loot, happy, repeat. Relatively engaging when you start exploring, not necessary the whole game though, gets staler over time unfortunately. Understand that repetitions is inherently the core concept in extraction-esque titles but, I would say EFD turns out to be rather tedious from the halfway ~ 3/4 point. Mainly because many aspects of the game became determinable even with pseudo-dynamic loot and enemy spawn locations.
Items and mobs you find are practically the same most of the time, not much variations. New items drops from time to time but, I don't think it warrants the grind especially if you are a player that played till the end. Sure, there are mobs that spawn when certain conditions (Rain, night, storm, etc) are met but, irrelevant to most extent in regards of progression; just one run and you're done for that mob.
Loops are roughly identical and that's acceptable-ish, issue is: All the grind kinda results in nothing. You get materials - yay, then what? Most of them are realistically used for monetary purposes. You have limited slots, so you can't really just hoard everything, which then forces you to sell stuff. You'll have too much cash and no real purpose for it. Some would argue you'll need cash to go through mid game but, not really. Natural spawned loot suffices most needs for progression anyways. It's just there to buy those annoying items in quests and quests does gets more chore-ish as the list goes on.
Personally, it felt - wasted, in several ways. My biggest critic is the ending - 2 animated cutscene and some middle text. Grinded for 40-60 hours and the ending is that? Just sad as it felt like shoot and scoot kinda scenario. Done and that's it, no essence of anything. There are several different* endings too I reckon but, all of them are practically the same format. Not sure if devs are going to keep it that way or going to change it eventually but atm, it feels abrupt. I did expect a certain quality of ending after sinking so much time into and thus, a letdown.
Credit where credit's due, if you have extra time and money to spare, it's a rather decent (even good) title but, if you plan to go all the way until the end, it might get boring even in modded games. Game have a lot of good reviews because a lot of people played like 15+- hours and gave reviews. Guess it's fair since most people just wants to chill and enjoy the game from time to time but, I sorta want to share my piece too.
All-in-all, not too shabby. Was it fun? Sure. Expectations met? Meh. Will I recommend? Maybe.
