Just completed the base game today. As someone who loved the first game and although didn't beat "Riptide", did enjoy it; I view this game as a worthy successor. The level cap is a bit low, and I saw some complaints about there being no skill tree but the skill cards are basically the same thing and they're always swappable. The story itself is really short if you don't entertain yourself with side quests, and the plot suffers from "why don't characters just speak up instead of letting themselves be cut off and ignored" tropes, but that's to be expected with most linear narratives. Combat it smooth and the blueprints are deadly. A lot of survivors are annoying, and I didn't want to help a number of them, but I remember the original also having stupid and rude characters as well so that just seems on par for the universe.

Sammy B got a redesign which weirded me out, making every cutscene with him felt so detached. Spawn points in this game are also kind of bad, zombies spawning behind you after you clear a room or phasing into existence in front of you if you are running through an area. Music in this game is pretty good and fits every scenario, Karen O's "Drown" make for a fitting title song, and the ending track "Stay Alive" would be extremely nostalgic to me if I were a kid playing this. I played as Ryan, and he had a number of humorous dialogues often recalling his profession as a stripper. Optimization isn't terrible, only started dropping frames when I was fighting a horde with apex variants and shit was exploding all around me + my Series X had been on for 7 hours straight.

There's probably more I'll think to say, but as of now I am left with that hole in my heart after beating a game you've sunk over a literal day's worth of time into. I will be considering paying for the DLC content since I had the luxury of playing for free using Gamepass.