Boltgun is mostly a boomer shooter with not much of a substance but I think the fantasy of being a Space Marine being done so well with guns ripping through people and you walking like you weight one ton it nearly makes up for it. The main gripe I have with the game is that there is nothing new happening after halfway point of the game, you just kill the same stuff over and over. Another small problem I had with the game is that it desperately needs a map or some sort of a pointer because a lot of the time it's not clear where you should go.

Overall it's a decent boomer shooter that should have been shorter. I would only recommend it to fans of 40k setting as it masks some of the problems, at least for a while.

Man did this not click with me.

It seems right up my alley with how weird and political it is, but I just find it frustrating and too inscrutable. I keep having to redo levels and repeating minutes of gameplay on a loop because it's so damn hard.

I'm not as in love with the whole aesthetic as I thought I'd be either. Some tiny things surprised me like how the characters say the same lines without much variety. It's also full of long corridors that connect parts of the levels inelegantly by having you walk in straight lines for soooo long.

I just thought the brilliance on display would be upfront here, and not buried in so much frustrating time-wasters and confusing elements.

It's definitely interesting though how it completely forgoes most design rules (mostly in the UI and game feel) to fit within its own world. I'll probably give it another shot someday when I'm more in the mood.

Positives:
The final scene is one of the best in the series

Negatives:
It's placed right before the finale of the game.
Adds a district of Firenze... With nothing in it, well maybe like 1 or 2 important buildings but that's it, no content to do in that part of the map.
90% of it consist of basically the assassination side quests from the base game but much, much more annoying, honestly it's ac2 at its lowest.
That one mission with the ship, easily the worst part of the whole game.

David’s 30 Platinum Trophies Before Turning 30

1/30

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: As close to perfection as one can get.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5: Excellence incarnate.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Amazing experience.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5: Good game.
⭐️⭐️⭐️: Fun enough to be worth your time.
⭐️⭐️.5: Missed the mark in a considerable amount of elements.
⭐️⭐️: A trudge towards progress/completion.
⭐️.5: A great deal of regrets playing this.
⭐️: Truly disappointing.
.5: Kudos to anyone with a shred of bother.

The above rating descriptions pertain strictly to the overall rating after taking into consideration the elements below, for which I’ll still employ a five-point rating to get an average afterwards.

Graphics: 4 - An immersible environment worthy of continued exploration (as the game would also like you to do) filled with characters that can border close to the uncanny valley. But for a developer this size, there should be much appreciation for their commitment towards high-end character graphics.

Gameplay: 3.5 - Running and talking (until you get to a point in the game that introduces a new mechanic, unless you chose a decision very early on that allows you to perform said mechanic in a different way) for the most part, but made interesting by the main plot device.

Audio: 3 - It has what I think Greek and/or Roman antiquity sounds like in all their cliched and pompous glory.

Replay Value: 5 - Though the game presents four main endings, the multiple ways to get there is as curious as it is fun (or frustrating after the nth time trying to figure it out on your own).

Story: 5 - With a philosophical inquiry as its main anchor, branching discussions on choice, morality, religion, and existence (among other things) considerably augment the game’s gameplay and replay value.

Overall: 4.1 - Not too forgettable, in my experience.