I enjoyed the gameplay in the demo a lot, but I have a few criticisms:
1: I'm not the biggest fan of the HUD's new look. S1's HUD felt very exact, precise, and minimalistic, which I loved. For me, the shape of the ammo bar and its size feel off. I also am not a huge fan of the active reload circle. I can't place my finger on it, but it feels slower and less "clean" than S1's did, so to speak.
2: There needs to be a way to see enemies that are hiding behind walls inside of buildings and stuff. It wasn't a big deal in the demo because it was only the first four stages, but on high terror levels with demigod runs like those possible in S1 I could easily see a Red Guard soldier sniping you from one of those spots and instantly killing you.
3: The general pace of the game feels much slower (and this coming from someone who's a level 120 Heavy Gunner on S1). I think it's because enemies are spaced a hair farther apart and base movement speed is a little lower, but the time delay between exiting a fight and entering a new one is too high for my taste.
The good!
1: I love the 2.5D perspective. It really freshens up the gameplay coming at it from a new angle (literally, haha) and adds some new variety.
2: The gunplay feels pretty good. Obviously I've only tested some of the like 7 guns in the game so I'm not entirely sold yet but things like the railgun felt nice to shoot.
3: I'm very interested to see the new mechanics for leveling and customization as they're rolled out.
Thanks for making an amazing game, Shrike!