Overdesigned slurry. So much of what you can do in this game is mechanistic and utilitarian to a fault- yes, giving the Doomguy a little dash like he's an Overwatch character does open up new encounter design opportunities because now he has a dodge button, but it's the most boring form of mobility imaginable. I think Doom Eternal's design is best understood by looking at the Flame Belch- one of many activatable-on-a-cooldown abilities that you have at your disposal, the flame belch shoots out a tiny little gout of fire in front of you. When you hit enemies ignited by it you get armor. It looks and feels like shit to use and doesn't really add any depth to the combat (you use it when you need armor, not rocket science) but it's necessary to fill out the game's overall design philosophy of Doomguy being self-sustaining, never needing to stop to get ammo or health or etc. because now there's a button to get that from enemies instead. You have like 5 buttons that are basically the equivalent of the flame belch- they serve a clear mechanical PURPOSE but don't improve gameplay. The result is you can do a bunch of stuff. None of it is fun or satisfying to do and you're going to do it a lot. It doesn't make for a bad game, just a dull one. It would be a lot better off if the level and encounter design wasn't largely generic and dull (the DLC improves the encounter design a lot and finds ways to make the same enemies interesting; if you like this game that's the best part of it). A lot of design choices meant to incentivize weapon switching (which is good) are way too linear and one-dimensional- for example, one enemy has a little weak spot disconnected from its body, so when you see one of those guys you switch to the gun that can scope in a shoot the weak point. I used the same gun to do this every single time. It didn't make combat more dynamic, it felt like playing simon says. Any interesting emergent gameplay or actual improvisation in combat is lost beneath the flood of systems that create obvious correct options in most situations.

It's still pretty fun. It's not terrible or anything, if you like Doom 2016 it's probably at least worth trying.