Tried to give this a fair shot, but man... I REALLY dislike it.
Negatives:
Movement feels awful in this game. It feels like every time you try to dodge or vault something or use a zipline you're fighting your character to lock into the animation. When it does work, particularly for ziplines, it feels very jarring. And then half the time it just doesn't work at all (mostly for dodges). Running feels slow compared to the other games in the series.
It's a lot harder to see zeds in this game than in the previous two... they blend a lot more with the environment. It also feels like more than half of zeds lunge at you really quickly and/or have long-range attacks now, which isn't necessarily a problem on its own, but when combined with not really being able to see or outrun zeds as easily, it makes the entire game way more irritating. Also, husks feel even more broken in this one, which is saying something because they were already the worst in the other two games.
Audio cues are confusing... sometimes it sounds like a zed is right in your ear when they're actually ten or more feet away.
Please give us back server browsing. Even if you make it accessible only from the hub, GIVE US SERVER BROWSING. I want to be able to see what round a server is on before joining, and what my ping is going to be, etc.
This is just a cosmetic gripe but I also dislike that they made it so every character only has 2 cosmetic slots... a helmet and an outfit. BORING! And while KF2 was littered with microtransactions just as much if not more so than this game, at least a lot of the the items and characters you could buy LOOKED good. Where is Mrs. Foster, you swines?
Voice lines are less frequent and less whimsical, from what I experienced... which, if you disliked the frequency of voice lines previously, could be a positive I suppose... but it's a negative for me.
Neutral:
The new maps aren't bad, but it's sometimes unclear which areas are traversable until you're right up on them... which becomes problematic if they're not. That said, you can traverse a lot more places than in the previous games. Being able to jump on top of some things and go up some ledges is really nice, despite my gripes about how inconsistent it can be.
I could see people disliking the hub area but it doesn't really bother me since you can just go into the menu and don't have to run around to the different stations unless you just wanna explore. Not sure if that was an option from launch but regardless, it's a nice QOL option that makes the hub area ok for me, though honestly just being able to do everything from the title screen would've also been ok.
Pros:
The weapons/gunplay feels good from what I experienced, bullets and explosions and zed attacks feel appropriately impactful. And while the lack of weapon variety is disappointing, the customization options do add an interesting twist. I like that you collect materials as you play that you can then spend on customizations.... that feels like it could be a fun gameplay loop for a long time, especially if they added more weapons and mods as time went on.
The perk trees having more options and the ability to upgrade your perks is pretty intriguing. I didn't look through all the different perk trees, but the ones I looked through had some fun options. I clearly didn't unlock much given my playtime, but just based on gut feeling it seems like an improvement over the previous games.
The new bosses were fun (and a lot less BS than some of the KF2 bosses...), though I feel like I didn't experience them in the way you should be able to because I fought them all solo. If I were to play again I'd hope they would add the patriarch back into the rotation at some point, though, just cuz it feels strange without him.
The music still slaps from what I noticed, and the weapon and zed sound effects are good.
Conclusion:
Honestly, even though I really disliked it, I believe the game is salvageable. There are some good bones here. But until at LEAST the movement and visibility are improved, I don't see this being a game I could realistically enjoy. It doesn't matter how good your gameplay loop is if the gameplay itself is not fun.
