My thoughts on Gunvein have been varying quite a lot during my almost 10 hours of playing the game as of writing but I've settled on a positive reception overall. Unbalanced and visually generic, but also thrilling and engaging, Gunvein is a shmup for those of us who love playing the genre as aggressively as possible. Seeing just how much you can get away with sticking to the top of the screen while using your bombs as truly intended - as super attacks to melt through enemy formations quickly. All three ship types feel fun to play and the bosses have a nice CAVE feel to them, quickly cycling through different patterns to constantly keep you on your toes. The extra missions and roguelike modes feel a bit undercooked but still add a lot of extra replay value to the game.

If you're looking for a new shmup in the vein of Crimzon Clover and aren't fussed if it's not quite as good as CC, give Gunvein a try.

Aggressive bullet-hell shmup that mixes ideas from many of the best in a modern style. But for a modern CAVE style game the highest difficulty mode is far too easy, around the middle point (e.g. average CAVE first loop clear).
I'd expect modern games to push easy & hard modes further from the middle to appeal to new players and hardcore fans. If an Ultra mode or such is added this would sit comfortably alongside Crimzon Clover as an all-around package.

The game system and stages are excellent. Visibility of bullets is clean and modern similar to Blue Revolver. Difficulty tweaking just feels a bit off.
Player ships seem to be overtuned after early demos making stage enemies feel too weak. e.g. Type-C turned from a technical hard to master scoring type into a win at everything type.