was pretty surprised by how much fun i had playing this game. gameplay was fun, setting was cool, and as someone who has a tendency to get scared, it was nice that you have a partner with you the majority of the game... even if they don't do any damage or help you at all.

i liked most of the boss battles, but the first and last one were really tedious. the first boss can insta-kill you, and for some reason, there's an endless wave of enemies coming at you at the same time you're trying to fight the boss; probably the worst boss in the game. the last boss takes a ridiculous amount of ammo to kill and the range of the aoe attacks were impossible to get away from; dodge mechanics sucked and felt hard to time so i didn't even bother with them, i just ran around him and hoped to not get hit.

last criticism i have is that the story wasn't that great. i understood the overall plot, but not the details and i was left pretty confused about some of the characters' motivations. the story doesn't impact the gameplay though, so regardless i'd definitely replay this game.

this game understandingly gets a lot of criticism and before i get into my own criticism of the game, i will say that i played this with my friend which definitely helped the playing experience, so if you pick this game up i'd highly recommend you find a buddy too.

now, on to some of the things that bugged me during my playthrough of this game:

- janky controls and movement. the auto-running doesn't really work for the slow-paced parts with puzzles. the controls and buttons were confusing (for pc), especially when you're first starting out, and sitting there remapping everything isn't a very fun activity.

- the ui is generally bad. it's fine in some campaigns, but in others (it changes with each campaign) it was just very distracting.

- a lot of bosses were unfun and took long to beat. sometimes me and my friend were left wondering if we were approaching the whole fight wrong or not because it felt like we were getting nowhere.

- qtes weren't the move for this game. they don't really fit in with the gameplay and weren't really needed at all, they just became annoying eventually.

- the game gives you no breaks from the action and yes, i get that this is an action game, but there were just explosions everywhere constantly and things pursuing you at all times and you could barely even catch your breath. i don't mind action games, but i think this was poorly executed :(

- i'll be blunt with this: ada's campaign co-op was awful. the co-op elements in this campaign were nonexistent. my friend, playing as "agent", couldn't do even the most basic of things; they weren't allowed to interact with doors, puzzles, key items etc.. in most cutscenes their character model wasn't even there. the agent has no dialogue. it felt like i was playing with a ghost. and i get they're not an important character to the franchise, but at least flesh them out a bit for the sake of a somewhat enjoyable co-op experience. other campaigns were fine, but this one felt like a waste of time.

- the overall story wasn't super compelling to me either, but that's a lesser issue i have with the game. i liked the playable character interactions and relationship dynamics in the campaigns though!!

so overall, this game is pretty messy if you ask me. though with all this criticism i still wouldn't say i hate the game, it just definitely is my least favorite of the mainline games. i'd replay this for the achievements, but only with a friend!