I have over 200 hours in Darktide. Darktide is one of my favorite melee/horde shooters. I cannot recommend it to anyone.

The Good:

It's beautiful; in terms of the fantastic squibs heretics make when they're cleaved with axes, maces and chainswords, when they're bisected by bolter fire. The gothic-camp architecture iconic to 40k is lovingly rendered; the art team absolutely nailed everything they could possibly be asked to do.

Guns feel PUNCHY; every sound-effect is satisfying, every hit-reaction is viscerally enjoyable. Melee feels similar; there's a real sense of POWER in most swings or shots, and some (Thunder Hammer, Ogryn Maul) feel even more so, as they knock targets literal feet through the air.

The soundtrack SLAPS. To the point where when it kicks it, there's a temptation to just sit around and listen to; instead of punctuate it with autogun fire and melee thwacks. Absolutely stellar.

The bad: Everything else, unfortunately.

The story: Despite promises of an interesting and well-written story in the promotional materials and hype-streams for the game, proudly saying 'WE GOT DAN ABNETT TO DO STUFF FOR US!', the story is, uh...well. It doesn't exist. Every couple levels, your character is called to meet with an NPC who...basically just chastises them, and that's it. That's the story.

The balance: Veteran is flat out the single best class in the game, to the point where they outright dominate. Many weapons (melee and ranged) are wholly outclassed by others without even the tiniest of concessions towards niche cases. Some weapons are so bad they're more or less handicaps, and some are so good (powersword) that if you were to look at 100 random users, 95% would be carrying the same weapon.

And yet some bugs (Crucian Roulette applying to melee, which makes any weapon viable on Zealot) were squashed, in a balance patch (relegating a large chunk of weaponry to the dustbin) while the absolute stand-out weapons at the absolute top of their class were untouched.

And the elephant in the room: The progression systems. Absolutely abysmal.

Your character has access to a weapon shop that refreshes once every hour. Every item and every bit of its stats are randomized. There is no mechanic in the game to craft a weapon you actually want; what weapon you can purchase is 100% randomized. At 200+ hours in the game, I, as a zealot, STILL don't have a good shotgun; but I DO have a ton of excellent lasguns. . . that I will never use, because I neither like them nor find them suitable for my character.

What passes for crafting (really just 'upgrading') weapons and re-rolling random perks is woefully unfinished despite Fatshark saying 'we'll roll it out by December' (of last year) and both an extreme timesink (materials are rare and require entire missions to acquire, with full Grey to Orange upgrades taking literal HOURS to afford, assuming one is gathering EVERY hidden resource on a map) on top of also being heavily randomized.

There are perks ('blessings') on weapons that in many cases are either irrelevant 'slide for +3% reload speed for 2 seconds' or which outright make your weapon WORSE (+20% on first hit, -20% damage on every swing thereafter), to say nothing of the accessories/relics, whose pool includes '+x experience, +x ordo dockets, and +x% relic on match win instead of weapon', all of which are not only horrible filler, but make the item worse compared to other blessings.

Player progression, outside of feats (many of which are either incredibly useless (Zealot giving allies 5% more damage every time they eat 20% of their HP bar stands out, or outright broken (Zealot's matrydom+ stacking feat doesn't work at all), is therefore almost entirely reliant on pure RNG.

And yet despite a bunch of basic, core things either not working at all (a number of feats in the game, some of which HAVE been patched!), we have a flawless microtransaction store where you can...buy...premium...in game currency. To purchase cosmetics, many of which have their own clipping and other issues.

All in all, Darktide is the bones of a stellar game with great music and art direction draped over a wonderful combat engine...with every single other actual system in the game either busted or actively out to hurt the player experience. I cannot recommend it for that reason.

EDIT:

As of the Unlocked And Unloaded rework to itemization, nigh-on every quibble and issue I've had with the game has been fixed.

While a few minor mechanical issues remain (almost every time Fatshark changes blessings, it breaks the descriptions of said blessings into _bespoke_somethingorother_Xpercentage_onhit or other unintelligible nonsense), and a few balance issues (Veteran is still the best class in the game at nearly everything if built correctly, though nowhere near as badly as it was) the big issue is the itemization.

No longer do you have to pray to get a weapon with fantastic base stats and then pray that when you level it up it gets great perks and THEN pray that when you level it up it gets good blessings. Now, you can quite reasonably and feasibly get a weapon that, with a bit of effort on the player's part, can be brought up to maximum stats in everything you want.

It's not 'free' by any means; you'll need to clear a significant number of missions to amass the resources necessary to craft your perfect example of a specific weapon. But the RNG is so much gentler now that rather than feel like it's constantly in the way, it feels more as if you're, at most, a few missions away from what you want. And I personally find that very freeing. The new missions are fun, and the core bones of the game - fantastic melee combat, wonderful guns across the board, and a PHENOMENAL soundtrack and art design team - are all as strong as ever.

With the current redesign, I can very strongly recommend Darktide.

I have over 200 hours in Darktide. Darktide is one of my favorite melee/horde shooters. I cannot recommend it to anyone. The Good: It's beautiful; in terms of the fantastic squibs heretics make when they're cleaved with axes, maces and chainswords, when they're bisected by bolter fire. The gothic-camp architecture iconic to 40k is lovingly rendered; the art team absolutely nailed everything they could possibly be asked to do. Guns feel PUNCHY; every sound-effect is satisfying, every hit-reaction is viscerally enjoyable. Melee feels similar; there's a real sense of POWER in most swings or shots, and some (Thunder Hammer, Ogryn Maul) feel even more so, as they knock targets literal feet through the air. The soundtrack SLAPS. To the point where when it kicks it, there's a temptation to just sit around and listen to; instead of punctuate it with autogun fire and melee thwacks. Absolutely stellar. The bad: Everything else, unfortunately. The story: Despite promises of an interesting and well-written story in the promotional materials and hype-streams for the game, proudly saying 'WE GOT DAN ABNETT TO DO STUFF FOR US!', the story is, uh...well. It doesn't exist. Every couple levels, your character is called to meet with an NPC who...basically just chastises them, and that's it. That's the story. The balance: Veteran is flat out the single best class in the game, to the point where they outright dominate. Many weapons (melee and ranged) are wholly outclassed by others without even the tiniest of concessions towards niche cases. Some weapons are so bad they're more or less handicaps, and some are so good (powersword) that if you were to look at 100 random users, 95% would be carrying the same weapon. And yet some bugs (Crucian Roulette applying to melee, which makes any weapon viable on Zealot) were squashed, in a balance patch (relegating a large chunk of weaponry to the dustbin) while the absolute stand-out weapons at the absolute top of their class were untouched. And the elephant in the room: The progression systems. Absolutely abysmal. Your character has access to a weapon shop that refreshes once every hour. Every item and every bit of its stats are randomized. There is no mechanic in the game to craft a weapon you actually want; what weapon you can purchase is 100% randomized. At 200+ hours in the game, I, as a zealot, STILL don't have a good shotgun; but I DO have a ton of excellent lasguns. . . that I will never use, because I neither like them nor find them suitable for my character. What passes for crafting (really just 'upgrading') weapons and re-rolling random perks is woefully unfinished despite Fatshark saying 'we'll roll it out by December' (of last year) and both an extreme timesink (materials are rare and require entire missions to acquire, with full Grey to Orange upgrades taking literal HOURS to afford, assuming one is gathering EVERY hidden resource on a map) on top of also being heavily randomized. There are perks ('blessings') on weapons that in many cases are either irrelevant 'slide for +3% reload speed for 2 seconds' or which outright make your weapon WORSE (+20% on first hit, -20% damage on every swing thereafter), to say nothing of the accessories/relics, whose pool includes '+x experience, +x ordo dockets, and +x% relic on match win instead of weapon', all of which are not only horrible filler, but make the item worse compared to other blessings. Player progression, outside of feats (many of which are either incredibly useless (Zealot giving allies 5% more damage every time they eat 20% of their HP bar stands out, or outright broken (Zealot's matrydom+ stacking feat doesn't work at all), is therefore almost entirely reliant on pure RNG. And yet despite a bunch of basic, core things either not working at all (a number of feats in the game, some of which HAVE been patched!), we have a flawless microtransaction store where you can...buy...premium...in game currency. To purchase cosmetics, many of which have their own clipping and other issues. All in all, Darktide is the bones of a stellar game with great music and art direction draped over a wonderful combat engine...with every single other actual system in the game either busted or actively out to hurt the player experience. I cannot recommend it for that reason. EDIT: As of the Unlocked And Unloaded rework to itemization, nigh-on every quibble and issue I've had with the game has been fixed. While a few minor mechanical issues remain (almost every time Fatshark changes blessings, it breaks the descriptions of said blessings into _bespoke_somethingorother_Xpercentage_onhit or other unintelligible nonsense), and a few balance issues (Veteran is still the best class in the game at nearly everything if built correctly, though nowhere near as badly as it was) the big issue is the itemization. No longer do you have to pray to get a weapon with fantastic base stats and then pray that when you level it up it gets great perks and THEN pray that when you level it up it gets good blessings. Now, you can quite reasonably and feasibly get a weapon that, with a bit of effort on the player's part, can be brought up to maximum stats in everything you want. It's not 'free' by any means; you'll need to clear a significant number of missions to amass the resources necessary to craft your perfect example of a specific weapon. But the RNG is so much gentler now that rather than feel like it's constantly in the way, it feels more as if you're, at most, a few missions away from what you want. And I personally find that very freeing. The new missions are fun, and the core bones of the game - fantastic melee combat, wonderful guns across the board, and a PHENOMENAL soundtrack and art design team - are all as strong as ever. With the current redesign, I can very strongly recommend Darktide.