Recent reviews by Fistful of Owls

Summary: This is a moderately good game, but doesn't do justice to its predecessor.
If you haven't played Subnautica yet, go and play it now. If you have, and want a different take on it then this might be worth a look.

The environments are varied and sometimes beautiful, but the land biomes feel clumsy and are nowhere near as enjoyable to explore as the sea biomes. All of the sea biomes seem to be filled with a murky haze that makes navigation difficult, which I suspect is put there prevent you from being able to see from one edge of the biome to the other.

The voice acting is quite good, and I enjoyed parts of the story however I think the plot focuses far too much on the cookie cutter space aliens, and not enough on the story of science and ethics working for large corporations, and personal relationships on a remote research station, which are far more interesting to me. In the end the story left a huge amount unresolved and left me unsatisfied.

I do appreciate the devs wanted to try something new, and they certainly did, the major elements that they changed from subnautica ended up being less successful in my opinion.

For a game that touts itself as being difficult and painful it's surprisingly joyous.
Don't let the simplistic art style fool you, the RPG system is fairly complicated, and composing a team based on how the different classes work together and against different enemy types is the key to success.
The game will throw curve balls at you, but if you understand the matchups you can succeed, and the suffering you go through to get there only makes it more satisfying.

To me this is inferior to the original and I find it disappointing that the original metro 2033 is no longer sold on steam. Most of the textures and models are equivalent to the old ones, while the lighting is technically more accurate, it's also sharp and shows up the dated textures even more while harming the atmosphere that makes metro 2033 so great. Some will say the combat is less clunky, and they're right but that's not a good thing if you want to convey the experience of swinging a rifle while wearing wet clothes and body armour in a 2 metre wide hallway.
In short this original is an ageing masterpiece and this is a slightly damaged ageing masterpiece, so if there's anywhere you can buy the original, do that and if you already have it there's no point buying this.

Overall I felt game still has some elements that made metro 2033 great, but the lasting impression it left was of disappointment.
The open world is a failure, it felt like metro levels connected by a bit of not much while the narrative really pushes you with a feeling of time pressure which makes you want to rush forward rather than hang around and explore.
One redeeming feature is that the scale of the maps only serves to enhance the beauty of the models and effects, leading to an amazing looking game.
Probably the worst part of the game for me is the dialog. I find it poor quality, there's a huge amount of it, and it often destroys the pacing of the game.
On the bright side, the game manages to create an atmosphere of hopelessness and despair outside of the tunnels of the metro but if you're looking for tunnel fear or supernatural themes, look elsewhere, this game has left them behind in Moscow.

This is a very entertaining game.
The atmosphere, storytelling, and graphic style are very well done.
It also has more novel game mechanics than any game I've played for a while, and will keep you coming back for more.

Overall a brilliant game.
One of the only competitive shooters around which is designed to be fun and balanced, instead of realistic.
It's unique graphic style has it looking good 6 years after it's release.