Just not for me. I love Hotline Miami and this is clearly attempting to ape off the magic in that bottle, but it's missing the fluidity that makes that game shine bright.

I think there's some interesting things here, it tries to bring its own spin to the 'genre' with the pills and rage mechanics, and kicking and sliding, but in my opinion these just make it clunkier. You are a hot knife through butter in Hotline Miami, and in this you're more like a drunken T-34 crew trying to dodge the world's sharpest artillery. This needs to be simpler to work better, but making it simpler makes it first-person Hotline Miami, therefore begging the question of "why does this even need to exist when perfection was already found?"

I think the devs should keep at it. The art style is nice and it's really close to being something worth your time, but I don't think it's currently there. Unfortunately, they seem to be copying this game's thought process of "Let's take an already existing thing and put a different, worse spin on it!" with early access Sand is the Soul. Just make something original, fellas, you're worth it.