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TLDR: Returnal has fun gameplay and an interesting story but it struggles to not overstay its welcome. Do not purchase at full price (60 USD).
Returnal has a lot of incredible things to offer. Great graphics, great soundtrack, great worldbuilding, an interesting albeit vague story. The gunplay is also incredible satisfying as is evading all the swarms of bullets the game throws your way. I absolutely adore the adrenaline system as well.
However, if you read the game's description you may notice that it is labeled as a "roguelike". And I suppose by the dictionary definition, Returnal is one with its infinite deaths and randomly generated worlds and items. The problem is that it's not a very good one. One of the most fun things about roguelikes is playing them over and over again, trying out new builds, and dancing around what the rng throws at you every time. Returnal doesn't really feel like that. It was extremely rare for me to pick up an an item because of my build. Instead, I usually only picked up an item because it just seemed the best out of the ones I could pick. Build synergy was very rarely something to consider.
This wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that Returnal is a game built around you playing it over and over again; it's a roguelike. Hell the name is literally a reference to that. But over time I found it increasingly difficult to return to Returnal. The lack of real "builds" meant that the RNG honestly felt very meaningless and despite the randomness, every run began feeling very samey. And that's a big problem in a game where you're supposed to die and retry several times. Dying in games is never fun, but dying in Returnal and having to play the entire map again was brutal. To be fair, once you've beaten an area, the developers made it so you could basically skip to which ever next area you had already reached so you never had to play the entire thing, but even playing one section got very old, very fast.
I actually ended up having to take a break while trying to beat the 2nd boss because of this frustration. The satisfying combat ended up pulling me back weeks later and the story made me want to stay till the end. By the time I finally got the ending though, I was completely mentally cooked. And to find out that in the end there's a SECRET ENDING?? I just couldn't be bothered. Fastest video game cutscene I've ever youtubed.
Overall, Returnal has a lot going for it. And if you really fall in love with the combat, it has a ton of repetitive content for you to consume. Personally, I liked it, but not nearly enough to stick around. I'm glad I got this game for half off. It was fun, but way overstayed its welcome to be worth AAA game price.