I got maybe half a dozen missions in or so, up to 3 or 4 main characters. It felt really slow-paced. It seemed like you had to leapfrog around cover points and creep up or wait for them to blow cover first. Maybe the gameplay gets more sophisticated later on with more skills and larger parties, but I definitely wasn't completely happy with the overall pacing. Also, the ammo felt plentiful, but also felt like a chore. Inventory juggling quickly became an issue early. Ammo felt plentiful, but I still felt like I had an obligation to hoard it when I could, resting when I could be making 50-70% chance shots. IIRC, you needed to use an entire ammo unit to reload regardless of the number of rounds left in the gun, ouch.

I got distracted by Shadowrun: Dragonfall soon afterward, but Halfway wasn't a bad buy on sale and I might come back to play it more later. For a Halfway expansion as a developer, I would definitely consider ways to make pacing a bit snappier.

Jenna was hands down my favorite. I never even used her special ability (only tried it once or twice, drains all the ammo and misses a lot of shots anyway), I just gave her the best sniper rifles and with an aim of 12 (end game), she completely owns. She and Morten and Sam were my trio of death. It's possible to go even higher than 12 for her but seriously, 12 aim is good enough. The Old Rifle served through a whole bunch of missions, only to be replaced near the very end by the latest and best class of MK sniper rifles.

You're welcome, I hope you'll make it to the end and that you'll have fun in doing so.

Naturally, it's your right to rate the game anything you want and you will rate it according to your own experience regardless of what I say.
3 stars is considered solid by some but I think for the majority 3 stars equals a "pass unless it's your favorite genre and you're very bored and it's on super steep sale" death sentence and will make the game harder to sell. I don't review games for myself but because I hope to introduce new players to something they might not have tried otherwise and it would make me very happy if someone later said "hey thanks, by the way you convinced me to buy that game and I ended up liking it."

I've already explained why I believe 3 stars is too low (even objectively seen) but I realize that regardless of how elaboretly I state my point, I can not convince anybody or even a majority. Case in point would be the many downvotes my review on the store page received. I still don't entirely understand that but I guess one must accept that here on the internet, you can't "win" any argument, regardless of your efforts. Even if you describe in many thousands of words how you arrived at your conclusion, people can just show up and say "meh, bah, blergh...TL;DR, 5 stars too much. You is fanboy. I vote you down. trollolol" That's the reality of the internet, it's the same popularity contest as elsewhere and there is no such a thing as "seniority of opinion" or a pure objective opinions police that keeps the feelings faction in check. I just try to be as fair as possible because making games is hard and I don't want to be a spoiled gamer who blasts everything but doesn't create anything, that wouldn't be very good.

I noticed that the game is much higher rated on Steam and my guess is that people over there are younger and perhaps less jaded than people here. I'm not the youngest myself so I can sympathize, my patience for nonsense and bad design in games has grown much thinner than it used to be a quarter century ago. I often abandon games after one hour and let them rot on my HD only to give them a serious try later. FTL is such a game, couldn't care less about it but it's still installed and I'll give it another go to see if I like it better on a second attempt.
If my first impression isn't good, it often doesn't change for the better even if I invest 15-20 hours more. But I try to be fair and always see the fault in myself first before I blast a game. Unless it's Torchlight which I refuse to rate & review because I hated it. Technically, it's not a bad game. But I can't stand it and therefor decided that since my negative subjective feelings are so strong, I'd better keep details to myself.

For missions like that when melee zombies pop out of small rooms and you end up getting hit a lot, it's no shame to reload from the base and bring extra medikits. As I said, there's no need to save energy units, feel free to spend some of them to buy medium medikits and grenades. You won't run out of "cash" before the end of the game as there are only very very missions where you need to bring either extra grenades or medikits (or both) to make it through comfortably.
For Schaffer, shield cells make more sense than medikits because once his shield is gone, he can easily die in one serious attack so a medikit can be of little to no use to him in such a case.
In corridor style situations, it's best not to advance to far but to stay back because otherwise you get attacked from two sides. I can't exactly remember that particular mission in most cases staying back works well enough. For those guys that can't hit anything from a distance, you might feel pressured to let them storm ahead to melee but you can let them throw grenades, that needs no aim at all.
Halfway is massively more humane than e.g. the add-on missions from Incubation, in that game you were under constant time pressure and had to try to beat the missions in as few rounds as possible before you got overrun by endless spawning monsters. In Halfway, the enemies are limited. In Incubation, you had to move boxes around to block monster spawn points and there were enemies that could jump jetpack style and shoot from very far, and other enemies that were invulnerable from the front. Ammo was extremely limited, you could only reload a weapon via crates but you couldn't carry mags, so if you had 12 shots and those were used up, you had to find an ammo crate. You also couldn't switch weapons.
Halfway is a comfy feel-good piece of cake in comparison to the horrors of the Incubation Wilderness missions :)

Again, thanks for explaining your point of view!

One thing you have said was the most important and significant when it comes to the individual rating of games. "I'm not the youngest myself so I can sympathize, my patience for nonsense and bad design in games has grown much thinner than it used to be a quarter century ago."

After getting burned too many times, I simply became very wary when a product is hyped or when a game has too many enthusiastic 5 Star ratings here on GOG. And the rating system on Steam is flawed anyway, you can either give a thumbs up or a thumbs down, there is nothing in between. And of course is would give Halfway a thumbs up on Steam, since it simply would not deserve a thumbs down rating.

I can only give a rating based on my personal gaming experience. I usually try to take my rose-tinted nostalgia glasses off, when old games are concerned, since I believe that "ZOMFG!!!111, it brings my childhood back!" ratings are not really helpful. And just like you, I don't rate games when I realise that my personal preferences are in the way. Interestingly I could use the two Torchlight games as example for this as well. I mean, I get why so many people like them, but Torchlight is definitely not my game. I hate the happy colours and the stupid pet just gets on my nerves...

Please take into consideration that my 4 Star rating for Halfway still stands. But please try to also understand that I deem it a serious flaw in game design when the game surprises you with things you simply can not foresee. Beaming hoardes of enemies into the room, only seconds after the first fight and when your team members are still beaten up is no good mission design. In fact it is the equivalent of "and then a sniper hits you in the head from 2 miles away". There is simply no way to prepare for this.

And when I complain about the low hit chance and you tell me "You need to get close enough.", but then tell me "Don't get too close.", when I mention that fights in hallways are a bit lopsided, then those two statements don`t fit together. Again, a case of game design that could have been done better. Especially if the game forces me to get closer and expose myself to enemy fire, because the enemies have the tendency to run away when they took enough damage.

And yes, the Wilderness Missions are plain unfair. But then again the main game is a great example of neat mission design. Some mission are way more easy when you team is equipped accordingly, true. But I could go into most mission with 5 snipers or with 5 heavies and still win when I plan my moves carefully. Halfway on the other hand works more like "Wooops, this combination of team members does not work. I need to start over again, but with other team members." :)

Forgive me if I wasn't quite clear enough there: When you aren't hitting anything, you're obviously too far. And when you get slaughtered in melee, then you're obviously too close. It's a matter of balance and the respective situation.

In the early game both Linda and Morten can go up close and do decent melee. Later on that sorta thing is best left to Thirteen carrying enough medikits, maybe Schaffer with the very best Scout suit and 2 or 3 shield cells to recharge the armor. Everyone else shouldn't get into close range later on in the game. I didn't like Schaffer so instead of letting him get any glory, I just had him stand around like the pompous twat he is and let the others do the actual work.

I didn't mean run at the enemy like that guy in Gladiator (the one who pissed himself before the fight) who stormed towards his opponents in a fear-induced frenzy. I meant lure them just enough so they'll come closer, and if they retreat again lure them again, sometimes it's a matter of a tile or two to trigger the enemy to start chasing you. Since there is no time limit and no enemy respawns, you can take all the time you want. There are no levels that require hurrying and I appreciated that a lot. I did hurry in the very last mission but I later realized there are various ways to accomplish that level, mine was an aggressive fast way with 2 casualties due to impatience but the cool thing is, the game does allow for a variety of tactics and I found out that other people emphasized different characters than I did. Jenna is still the best though, I think anyone can agree on that.
It's a lure and retreat game at times, similar to RTS games like Command &Conquer or Warcraft where you lure a small portion of the enemy forces into your well defended positions. So when I say don't get too close I mean not to get so close that the enemy can reach you with melee (unless you want them to meet Thirteen and his chainsaw gun) and not so close that you'll get caught in a two-front battle. But not so far away that the enemy doesn't get triggered to come at you or is too far for a good shot. Unless it's Morten's steady shot, as mentioned.

So I wasn't trying to confuse you, sorry I didn't point out the situational context enough.

As I wrote above, there's more than one viable combination of team members to win a mission, I haven't tried to see if all combinations work all the time and I doubt they would so taking the best members you can choose -when- you can choose makes most sense. Same as in other games. I always brought Sam along, other players seem to have used Josh more. There's certainly a decent enough variety.
Of course Incubation is way better, no contest. Halfway is just an indie game after all and making strategy games is probably one of the hardest genres to code so they do get my respect for what they accomplished.
I too find it aggravating when you can't plan ahead and have to reload and use the "meta knowledge" from the previous failed attempt to get things right. But that's a common thing with hundreds of games including even very famous ones. Even games like Super Mario work that way. In Gorky 17, it's the same thing. You can't just spontaneously go around, that makes things a bit too brutally hard there. I usually reloaded once I knew "ok I need to pick up the flame thrower here first and only then will I walk over there and trigger the next battle". Tons of instances like that in way too many games to name. I never get used to this stuff, I seriously wish games would allow you to deal with the situation in a purely tactical way without having to reload and retry - while at the same time remaining challenging. Stronghold / Stronghold Crusader is a good example for such a game because most missions can be beaten without knowing what will happen beforehand, however in the campaigns there are still instances where you'll be sourly tempted or even forced to reload due to unforseen unreasonable enemy waves or some crap like that.
So while I hate that classic design "dick move", it can be found in way too many games. You can deduct points for that I you wish, I just shrug it off if I make it through. A difficulty spike that I can pass with 3 or max 4 attempts is still ok, I get miffed when I keep trying and dying and no strategy seems to work. The final boss of Titan quest was such a badly designed pile of dung. The entire game was dead easy until the last two maps and the final boss was simply OP. had to go back and grind for one more level up and tediously exchange equipment before I managed to finish the game. It wasn't even a matter of intelligent tactics or skilled controls, just poor design. And yet it's overall one of the most solid action RPGs out there.
I must admit that if Halfway was a big studio project, I might have been less lenient and my 4,5 stars rounded to 5 stars verdict could have easily turned into "4 stars and no more, basta!"

'Position is key'
- Jump incoming

Immediately out of position and punished for it.

I really like the game, but when in-game events throw you out of position *and then* give the enemy first turn, it's almost unforgivable, esp. when I plan for it and the game moves my party as part of the cut scene. Even more so when you can't seem to hit a target even with a 70%+ chance of doing so...

A few different gameplay decisions and...