izigame.me

Let me preface this review by stating I have completed the game twice, first time on hard and second on exterminatus alongside all the secrets. I currently hold all 12 achievements for this game. I'm stating this because a common criticism of this game is that people leave positive reviews after engaging with it for a couple hours and then dropping it.
I consider myself a casual enjoyer of the WH40K universe. I have played Mechanicus and the Dawn of War games, but not Space Marine, whose story this game is a sequel of, thus I cannot comment on the story of this game, nor can I compare this to other boomer shooters since this is not a genre I usually engage with.
I will talk about the positive and negative aspects of this game and then give a conclusion. As for what I liked, there is a lot of care put into this game and it has the high quality I desire out of 15-30hour single player games. The atmosphere is phenomenal, both in terms of sound design and visual design, alongside a few truly grandiose levels that you have to stop and be in awe of. The enemy design reminds me of the tabletop game, as if figures are blurred and made into enemies. The gameplay loop does not lag behind, with thrilling action thanks to a violent pace, lack of "cheese" enemies that ruin the fun, and lots of firepower at your disposal. The game goes out of its way to shower you with munitions and powerups so that you feel like a space marine exterminator, a wonderful power fantasy as you mow down heretic/demon hordes with the appropriate taunts.
Unfortunately this power fantasy is also a double edged sword as the tight munitions economy of other games goes out the window and you never run anywhere close to low on munitions. The gun variety is severely hampered by some guns (shotgun/meltagun/caliver) being more situational and specific than generalist guns such as the heavy bolter. There is a lack of weapon specificity where specific weapons counter specific enemies as in Doom, because in Boltgun you can realistically 100% the game with just the boltgun, heavy bolter and grav gun (for the bosses). Map design is also quite poor, as many people had issues navigating the levels while most levels were quite linear and not very interesting. Personally I didn't mind the levels much, I think this issue was more exacerbated by the poor enemy placement at times and general lack of enemy mobility. Enemies usually stand where they are which is kind of immersion breaking. There's also no custom map editor, no weapon wheel for easy gun selection (there are 9 of them. have fun with the keys) and enemy AI is generally limited as enemies usually either chase or stand and have 2 animations (ex plague frogs tongue strike, burp acid and then jump. This on repeat.). I also didn't like some of the secrets placement, I wish they were more environmentally bound to encourage exploration instead of cheaply hiding them being fake walls that need to be activated without a prior hint (you need a guide to find them). Missed opportunity imo.
Overall, I quite enjoyed my time with boltgun. I can see quite a few areas where it could be better, but overall I would rate my 24hrs with it as a solid 7.5/10. Well worth the money I spent on it. It's pretty immersive and fun, though if you're going at it for 100% it can feel like a bit of a chore.