A great, fast-paced space shooter, that feels dynamic and fresh even after 20+ hours. At first, the difficulty might scare you away, but with practise comes pay-off. It becomes challenging, but never too easy (except for the first quarter of the game). The loot system, which also seems harsh, seems to be just right, though I feel like some items should have been more expensive compared to other items. The content of loot you will find in missions are random, as well as the the provisions of the trader after each mission. This, with the randomized level lay-out and combinations of units and the challenge they offer, is what this game makes so amazingly replayable. Ofcourse, you can get (un)lucky in some situations, making it feel like it's unforgiving at times. To me, that is a great premise of a game in the traditional sense as it is a call back to the arcade days of the 1990s.
It's an action in the fullest: not only do you have to watch the enemy closely, but you also have to pay attention to the environments. Use gas pipes, explosive barrels or hostile plants to your benefit by throwing the one into the other. This was obviously intended by the dev team, since heading enemies straight on is often times a losing battle.
It's a shame though that the amazing game mechanics are dressed up by some horrible looking art designs and boring music. The latter I just replaced with my own music, the former is unavoidable. Perhaps easy to ignore for some, but nevertheless a bummer that the team didn't choose another style that isn't like an old flash video made from the early 2000s.
Lastly, there is a dissappointing DLC mode, which came for free. It's called The Void, where the player is thrown in an endless mode wherein enemies gradually gain more and more health, and you can obtain only less loot as rounds move on. It's not impossible to get an hour long game going, but for many experienced players it's often times over after 20 minutes. I would have appreciated a more balanced endless mode, where the difficulty doesn't spike so soon in the run. This mode also suffers from the biggest problem of the game, which is the camera: normally it moves to nearby enemies, other times it just doesn't. Because of this, you can get rushed by enemies from offscreen. It is also why, I believe, some thrown explosives don't go off because they went offscreen.
I should also mention that the achievements are bugged. This is a huge bummer, because these are perhaps the biggest motivators to keep playing. It's really demoralizing to not get a certain achievement, despite spending over 30 minutes straight.