Space Hulk Deathwing is a big beautiful mess. this game is a dripping gory beauty of high res textures and oozing detail that comes at the price of unoptimized stuttering (looking around on steam It's not just me who claims that their GPU needs some power-armored servo-assists) This game is also so very 40k proper. Everything is explosively violent and wicked, embellished, sensationalized. One of the most important things to me in an FPS is a million little subtle details that ride heavy on the backstory. You can throw any cheesy plot at me and if i wade throw and slog through a bunch of maps but feel the immersion despite flawed mechanics and a shoddy engine i'll enjoy the ride just for the virtual sight seeing factor alone (Fallout 3 for instance) Deathwing does a lot of that really well, in it's own weird way, but your ability to take it all in is interrupted with crazy difficult hordes, that are fast and endless. Just like EYE you have an abundance of tech embedded in and about you in the form of tweaked cyber HUds and weapons as your romp down a big space ship that feels a bit like every classic FPS made by id mishmashed together within the walls of the spacehulk itself as it shift from bloody stalwart hallways to wide open gothic arcades to macabre castellian undercrofts that look like wolfenstein then crawl your way back to another DOOMed industrial area reminding you that you are in some massive spaceship again.

This game is every bit as crazy as EYE was, has a similiar feel, otherworldly aesthetic and yes it has a comparable soundtrack. It has the fingerprints and vision of EYES main designers everywhere. It''s kinda fun but it definitely has a bit of a sour taste, and it's no everlasting gobstopper. It impresses one quite heavily at the beginning. After some time, it gets weary.

Just like EYE, it still has it's own share of janky flaws: like EYE . weird weapon balance (i dont really like any of the weapons but the standard issue stormbolter, but all the melee weapons are awesome) Difficulty aside (it's impossible without cheating) there is plenty to like and dislike about the game. For one, 40K fanboys get a half-way decent game for a change, It's an experience that feels a bit like quake or unreal. Some people complain about various things, (lore/canon/etc) but if you ask me these guys really know how to make a warhammer game right! It's easy for fans of EYE to admire the improvement of Streum. Other players might not be as pleased: it has a hefty price tag, it has stuttering issues, network issues and balance issues. It definitely doesnt feel finished. IT simply isnt a solid multiplayer game. The narrative is also in no way as mysterious and interesting as like EYE. it's a psseudo left for dead kind of feel in the sense its a PVE game with endless hordes but it doesnt really get the balance right and has its own issues for multi.... imo there is a lack of replay value in the way EYE did. single player is playbale but multi needs patches. It would be nice to flush a meltabomb down a pipe or something to seal it off like in the board game (And this game would be maybe possible with that mechanic as well imo) or do things like that to control mobs somewhat if not actually clear areas. I cant really get a feel or grasp for mob management. It doesnt really feel like straetgy, more like randomized arcade. There's no disadvenatage/advantage to crawling slowly, or really going quickly you can't really be careful or reckless. Ai does a decent job, but its' not enough to stay alive. would also be nice if the medic was at least somewhat semi-autonomous. psi powers are a bit dissapointing, and you can't switch past your initial three until you go back to the armory. Also the story was lacking and a bit dissapointing. While there was a good build up and they built some loose narrative around an ancestor of the brotherhood, its as if they literally at some point said 'oh that? nah we dont need no story' and that was the end of it.

The game is a mixed bag. it feels like a bare bones game but the skeleton is made out of adamantium, or at least shines and sparkles. but at the very least you have to give streum on some credit for having a highly embellished and signature style that really does stand out in the often-generic world of the FPS. And it's like what? three guys that pretty much run the show? Gee. No, it' not DOOM but The feel of this game as you play it isn't a far cry off from the game that the parodical STRAFE trailer depicted, that's indeed how I feel while playing it anyway (a simultaneous need to blink and wipe alien guts out of my eyes)

I am simultaneously impressed and dissapointed, it is not EYE, it is less and more in different ways. But at the very least it's different for an FPS and it's very good for Warhammer standards. Getting the thunderhammer right was a big bonus too lol. IT was honestly better than I had expected it to be. But the things i was expecting to be strongest were definitely NOT the strongest. Such as that crazy backstory EYE had (and all the weird stuff) and tons of cool weapons. But I wasn't expecting beautiful maps and textures or the visual candy that this came with. It still feels unfinished, and ultimately something else will have to bring you here to play the game in a world of DOOM and L4D, (certainly more than one playthrough) like your love for the emperor, i guess.

"Meh."
-Corvus Sidhe