The Citadel's gunplay is okay, in that the weapons shoot and do damage and that's fun, but there are a lot of tacked on mechanics that don't fit with each other. Lean-aiming, low player health, and very particular timing and penalties around reloading indicate that The Citadel is played slow and tactically. Open levels, high move speeds, and roof-to-roof mobile combat suggest running and gunning. These mechanics don't support each other, and they don't overlap enough to warrant a "pick how you play" approach to the game. I found myself leaning into tactical play simply because such a play style has more mechanical punishments to juggle.

The Citadel's environment and prop art is acceptably bland; not good but with enough consistency to still create a readable artistic picture. The sound design doesn't do as well The music does fit the game, sometimes, but the remaining audio elements lack a purpose other than to check the box of being there, with one exception:

The Citadel's got a lot of moe murder, and it's unnervingly brutal. At first I thought that was the point: the painful, dissonant anguish of a world in such inhuman/posthuman peril. But the player is so empowered in their brutality that I feel like I'm supposed to enjoy it? It's very creepy, and not in an enjoyable way.