An unflinching brutal run-n-gun
The mother ship, a massive behemoth of scrap steel patched and riveted together, fires you out of your drone ship. Your vision goes red, and billions of lines of code, diagnostics, and information flashes across your display. Your drone docks into the starport. The mission is simple: Kill everything.
The gameplay is tight, fast, and maniacal. The controls and the platforming are extremely tight, leaving almost no room for error. Unlike other "hard" games, you are fully in control at all times. To offset some of the enemies' small appearances, they emote clearly with bright symbols and exclamation points to point out their position. All of the weapons, from the starting shotgun to the instagibbing railgun, feel incredibly satisfying to use. The game loves to screw with you at some points, but it's easy to hop right back into the action again, and is more hilarious than frustrating when it does happen. For replay value, there are collectibles, more difficulty modes, and even some hidden levels to unlock.
If there are some complaints to make, I can think of two. One, in a very heated gunfight, the levels sometimes blend together too much and become a bit of a muddy mess, making it difficult to distinguish background from platform, meaning the split second spent trying to study the level can mean death. Two, the maximum ammo for the weapons is pretty limited, and again, in the middle of combat, it can be a bit jarring to suddenly switch from a machine-gun to a grenade launcher.
Those are small complaints that are not game-breaking at all, but only slight nuisances.
Overall, if you are a fan of dark industrial levels and frenzied shooters, this is an excellent, excellent game to play. There are few games out there today that can get your blood pumping like Butcher can.