The game design is disruptive against the player, on a level where NG+ and score runs are a nightmare. Score-wise, you either know exactly how the developers want you to play, or your score will not be good enough. Some weapons/techniques just don't give enough score, so you on this side it isn't something like "know the mechanics, and do well". It's just "use this specific loadout and play exactly like this". If not enough, enemy AI is unpredictable, but not in a fun way. The AI just does whatever, and doesn't have any recognizable patterns or reason to become aggressive against the player or not. They can engage and disengage for no reason, and when you're playing for score or on a mission that requires taking enemies down fast enough, this AI problem becomes even worse, because the map is too large for you to not take too long to seek enemies on the other side and either lose score or lose because a lot of enemies spawned. One mission in specific draws out the worse of these problems with the AI and its unpredictability, which tasks you in defending a city from bombers. In this case, a bomber can drop a bomb to the ground, and if the bomb touches the ground, mission is lost. Thing is, if you don't take the bombers fast enough, another one spawns (sometimes they take about no time between each other spawns). If both bombers drop bombs, they'll usually drop it on opposite sides of the map, and you will not have enough time to take both down. Even if you do, by the time you get the second bomb, another will be dropped, you won't have enough time to destroy (or even damage) the bombers, and will be stuck on this loop of "fetching bombs left and right". That is, if you're lucky and you just don't fail the mission just because the game decide. NG is playable, but NG+ is when these design issues creep to the point of the game becoming unplayable. (also, the Discord is full of game mechanic spoilers on the main channel despite existing a separate one for that stuff)
