I haven't played original, so I don't have comparison, but I also don't have nostalgia goggles. With this in mind I must say that I quite enjoyed my time with this game. Sandbox levels are fun to goof around and missions are usually not very restrictive with how you play them (unlike modern sandbox games). I quite liked pulp sci-fi aesthetic and comedic tone. Biggest negative are disgusting character models. I get what they were going for, but end result looks like puppets from Spitting Image. Fortunately you won't see them much in gameplay thanks to third person perspective, but they do bring otherwise fun cutscenes down a bit. It's a bit grindy early on and some things could be better designed/balanced, but I didn't detracted much from my enjoyment.
Interesting, but somewhat unpolished, take on classic shooter formula. Here are my thoughs after 2 playthroughs on Normal (second playthrough with New Game +). Your arsenal consists of two weapons, each weapon with five modes, each mode with primary and secondary fire (although some of secondaries are just scopes). You start with only single mode primary fire on both weapons and use nanites (which are picked from enviroment/secrets and rewarded for killing some enemies) to buy others. You also get sword after few levels but it's mostly useless. From this setup first problems with design start to emerge. Because weapon progression is entirely up the player it is possible to invest in wrong modes (because they are not created equally) and make game harded than it is suppose to be (which is exacly what happen to me in my first playthrough). On top of that because of how arsenal is structured you have to have literal flowchart in your head in order to quickly get to mode you want (this got progressivelly easier as I played, but even in 2nd playthrough I still occasionally made mistakes). Enemies are also somewhat mixed bag. Enemies have very tight hitboxes, which often result in situation which are hilarious in hindsight (shotgun missing half of its pellets at point blank due to one of most common enemy types having narrow torso) but annoying in game. It's especially bad with missiles and grenades which can often graze enemy and not detonate. Enemies have weakpoints. Some do. Maybe. Sometimes enemies will die faster. Sometimes they will get partially dismembered. Barely any feedback so its impossible to get consistent results. Player character has unlimited sprint and dash. This can make some encounters easy. Game is less focused on straight up shooting enemies and more on crowd control and enviromental kills. Once you actually learn it it starts to become fun but early on it's really slog as you fight against weapon flowchart and habits from other FPS games.
There are moments when this game is fun, but too often they are interupted by bad design: 1)Mission in same region share maps, so you will be moving through same 3-4 enviroments, visiting same spots. 2)Agro range on roaming mobs is kind of broken, often many groups are attracted to you during fight resulting in gank. 3)Most upgrade tokens are trash, vasting your time selling/crafting. 4)Weapon upgrades are mostly elemental damage focused, on its own not bad, but in combination with how often mobs have various resists, means that quite often some of your weapons will randomly become useless. At any time you can change upgrades, but how fun is spending most of the fight in menu. 5)Melee combat is super shallow and clunky. Standard attacks are just mindless slashes, which sometimes enemy decides to block. Special attacks are controled by movement keys, so if you want to perform attack that doesn't match your current movement, you have to temporarly change diraction. There is also block button, it works in 1v1, but 99% of fights are againts groupsso it is pointless to use.
