Recent reviews by Frashier

UPDATE as of 1.0: still amazing game, improved a lot since my early access review, alll the masteries are there, lots of interesting systems have been added, campaign still not finished though.
Most of the negative reviews are due to bad launch, it was almost impossible to play online, Right now most of the server issues are fixed, I encourage everyone to leave a review or update it :)

I've updated the cons list to show how the issues have been adressed by the devs.

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+ really solid APRG
+ good audio-visuals
+ promised monetization is fair (no stash tabs paid for real money *cough* poe *cough*, only cosmetic items announced)
+ satisfying gameplay
+ well paced
+ unique idea with abilities having their own skill trees
+ amazing boss fights with well telegraphed stages and attacks
+ deterministic crafting
+ developers are really vocal and communicate with the community a lot over various media
+ built-in loot filter

~ doesn't offer such build diversity as Grim Dawn or PoE (rather comparable to Diablo) but executes existing systems really well
~ it's not polished, much is subject to change due to it being early access

- bugs *UPDATE less bugs
- unique items are often worse than rares *UPDATE there is a system that allows you to add affixes to uniques
- rares themselves have quite boring affixes (that means, each rare item has 4 generic affixes such as added health, resistance, movement speed, +1 to skill) *UPDATE there are new item types and new affixes that are a little bit more exciting than simple stat increases
- obviosly not finished (campaign ends probably midway or in 3/4 of it's intended length)
- end game is not too balanced and has it's flaws (does not have much content, there is not much to grind for) *changes coming this May *UPDATE more content added and pinnacle bosses announced to give that chase to more hardcore players
- money is almost useless *UPDATE trading has been added that uses gold + there is a dungeon that is a money dump
- optimization and audio problems when there is a lot of enemies *UPDATE mostly fixed
- there are balance issues (while they play the same, dual wielding is clearly superior to 2H weapons) *UPDATE I still not enjoy dual wielding mechanic but at least there are built-in benefits in certain trees that benefit either using 2H or dual wielding

Summary:
A solid entry for any ARPG fan, I bought it full price and don't regret it. Just brace yourself since it's an unfinished game, most of the issues are being worked on as of writting this review though.

+ Interesting and engaging gameplay loop.
+ Amazing OST fitting for the setting of the game.
+ Beatiful, hand-crafted stages.
+ Each survivor is different. They have default and unlockable alternate skills, so you can make your own skill loadout fitting to your playstyle.
+ There are a lot of items placed in a total of 6 tiers, every item can be stacked infinitely. They can either increase your stats, grant new effects, empower your skills or change them altogether.
+ A lot of unique enemies.
+ You can either finish the game by killing the last boss or loop as long as you like in hopes of achieving a "god run", essentialy killing screen-worth of enemies in miliseconds. You also have a choice of going to special areas with rewards for completing them.
+ Artifacts are game modifiers that can alter your gameplay even further. By picking Artifact of Command you get the ability of choosing your items instead of getting random ones, while Artifact of Vengence spawns your doppelganger as a miniboss every 10 minutes.
+ Daily, randomized, short challenges with leaderboards.
+ There is quite a lot of mods, like ones adding new items or new survivors.
+ Multiplayer with friends is very fun, you can also find a lobby with randoms.
+ Basicaly original Risk of Rain in 3D.

~ Story is not "in your face". You can either engage in it by finding logbooks during gameplay and reading them afterwards or ignore them altogether. That said, the lore is deep and well written.
~ There is no progress except unlockables locked behind achievements and currency that gets carried over between runs. Said currency gives access during runs to unique items altering gameplay mechanics and to a special area.
~ Anniversary update is said to be the last free content update, the next updates being paid DLCs having 2-3 previous update's worth of content.

- Although the game is easy to understand, medium difficulty is hard for beginners at first, even though this is the difficulty you are "meant" to play, I'd suggest starting with easy mode I think? And then if you find it too easy you could go to the next one.
- Certain objectives are highly disadvantegous for some survivors and borderline impossible to complete if you have a mediocre run. Recent example: I played as a melee character and on the final stage there is a objective of charging a pylon to 100% by standing near it. Leaving the zone decreases the charge level, but you must leave the zone in order to deal with monsters that gun you down. Some of the monsters get in melee range, but upon dying they leave a patch of fire that damages you for % of your max hp. If you stay in the zone you die but if you leave it to deal with the monsters it decharges.
- The game doesn't have official mod support but it is planned.
- Sometimes you get obnoxiously one-shot by monsters but I guess it is to be expected in rogue-likes.

Summary:
The game is very well made and gave me a lot of fun. Probably gonna put a lot of hours more into it. Great for any fan of rogue-likes and for anybody who liked the original RoR.

+ very good w40k setting
+ quite deep combat options (cover, many skills, adapting to enemies)
+ many ways to build your squad (fun skill trees enhancing squads' archetype or altering it)
+ good characters
+ battles, although not on a such big scale as you would expect, still deliver on w40k fantasy (gore, finishers, battlecries)
+ missions are varied except the ones that are (I suppose) randomly generated (e.g. capture strategic location)
+ quite good loot system for a RTS game with rarities, unique items and random ones
+ at almost every point you have a choice of doing a secondary mission for rewards
+ you get tips before missions depending on total strategic points captured what enables you to prepare your squad to the encounter
+ good soundtrack, fitting for a w40k game

- at first I was disappointed at the game not being a true RTS despite being a sequel (you can't build, recruit troops, gather resources etc.)
- as mentioned before the scale of battles is not too big
- you can't refund skill points without tinkering in game files...
- ...so you can brick your build from achieving the best skills if you distribute them unwisely
- randomly generated quests are not varied
- in the final mission one of my squads got stuck behind a drop pod
- pathing is bad

Summary:
I had great fun playing this game, although as mentioned I was initially disappointed at it being a tactical game. Nevertheless, the game is amazing and I can easily recommend it to any fan of w40k universe and tactical RTS.

+ great w40k setting
+ unique, atmospheric soundtrack
+ quite big variety of items and skills, you are free to build tech-priests pretty much as you like (support, tank, melee, etc.)
+ interesting, various enemies
+ pretty good and satisfying gameplay mechanics
+ interesting dialogs
+ unique characters with different motivations
+ bosses have different battlefields and sets of skills

- soundtrack, although great, gets repetitive quickly
- bad difficulty curve (played on normal difficulty, after killing 2/6 bosses I found myself clearing rooms in a single turn without injuries, tried speedrunning finding the bosses in order to catch up with the difficulty but never did, what resulted in skipping a lot of missions)
- after a while battlefields get repetitive (maps get reused multiple times)
- not varied battlefield objectives (kill all enemies, scan or destroy a device, escape to designated spot)
- although missions themselves are rich story-wise, it's always the same gameplay loop (go through randomly generated set of connected rooms, get to an event (or glyph), choose one of the 3 options, get an outcome that is sometimes counter-intuitive and/or random, get to a room with enemies/main objective, clear it, complete mission, repeat)
- because of the bad difficulty curve, bosses left me unsatisfied (more often than not I killed them in a single turn once I got in range, the last boss was killed in 2 turns) and are sometimes easily exploitable (triggered a boss to come to me quicker instead of him camping at his throne room, killed a heavily armored boss that I think was supposed to have 2 phases in a single phase thanks to a skill that lets me ignore all armor on attacks)

Summary
The game is great for w40k universe fans and tactical strategy games enthusiasts (although some may find it lackluster). I think the game is meant to be played either by not taking too much time perfecting your tech-priests' builds on normal difficulty or by playing it on harder difficulties. Otherwise, you may find yourself stomping everything after early game.

Fajne ale imo ekspansje > podstawka