There is a good enough game here somewhere, but it is very, very rough around the edges. Right away, I will mention it has an Assist mode which slows down enemy reaction speed, and it might be a good idea to make use of it. Nevertheless, it is absolutely incomprehensible how some of the game's glaring shortcomings got through testing.
Admittedly, the mechanical side of any game is usually debatable. Every game requires getting to know it to improve. Therefore, the ponderous player movement with next-to-useless melee ability, low rate of fire of most weapons, and lightning fast enemy reflexes can arguably be chalked up to the list of intentional design decisions. Things get "interesting" when the player character can round a corner and pop a shot off dead on target, while said target - all in the same amount of time it takes the projectile to travel to it - can stop whatever it was doing, whip a gun out, turn around, and return fire with pinpoint precision. Frustrating, but can be worked around with the tools the game provides for all three characters - slowing down time and dodge roll; the characters are usually too slow to peek without them. Lowering the graphics all the way also helped with the overall responsiveness of the controls.
Enemies seem to have a behaviour system implemented. Only melee enemies rush the player blindly. Ranged enemies try to look for cover and are even able to dodge roll. This obviously clashes with the timed combo system, but makes for a more engaging encounter. Having said that, enemies with massive impenetrable shields are simply tedious to go up against. They open up to fire a shot before turtling again, and track the player perfectly, spinning on their heels, making it almost impossible to get behind them by rolling. Getting too close to any enemy will trigger a quick one-shot melee attack. They keep their guard up long enough to ruin a combo streak, if no other enemies are around. In later levels these guys come in "armoured" variety, meaning they can tank a hit. Fortunately, the game features friendly fire, which is always fun, even if getting another enemy to gun down a shield bearer can be finicky.
However, it is hard to imagine the following quirks were genuinely intentional.
Dodge is supposed to provide invincibility frames, but it is incredibly unreliable. Even when it does work, projectiles push dodging characters like solid obstacles instead of just passing over them.
Just as unreliable is one character's ability, which is supposed to take down multiple enemies after marking them in slow motion. The sound and the animation play as they should, but the shots are sometimes not fired even with clear line of sight.
Rag dolls remain active targets and tank a few shots after falling to the ground, shielding enemies. In a top-down game which does not allow aiming above objects this is hugely problematic. If this happens in a tight corridor, retreating for a little while is the only option.
When your shotgun spread is so wild, a target standing at close range and right in the middle of it remains unscathed after two blasts in a row, something needs tweaking.
Picking up weapons and activating switches is done via the same key. Weapon pick-ups appear to take priority, so if there is a weapon lying next to a switch, the weapon has to be juggled far enough away from the switch for the input to be recognised.
Characters cannot fire immediately after picking a weapon up. The delay is only "momentary", but when the enemies are as fast as they are here, it matters.
The environments are not the easiest to read. This comes with the territory for almost all top-down action games, but is especially noticeable here. Additionally, the player character keeps getting snagged on any small object on the floor when navigating.
It is allegedly possible to change characters when replaying a level from the level selection menu, but this often seems pretty meaningless because the game might not agree with your selection and spawn a different character in the level.
The game won't even give you the satisfaction of fully working achievements. For example, the final one for getting all other ones might not unlock at all (easiest fix for the developers would be to simply remove it). The counters for some of them are way off, so they unlock suspiciously early and pretty much one after the other. The achievement for getting S-ranks in all levels curiously unlocks before playing all graded levels. One level is genuinely impossible to get an S-rank in, even with a perfect, full combo, 100% accuracy run, so it probably needs the score threshold lowered.
The level select screen does not even feature a way to check one's rank, only the scoreboard position. Nor does it feature a way to keep track of collectibles - while there aren't many of them, it would be nice to have a tracker. Keep an eye out for neon pink glow - it signifies one of seven laptops needed for the true ending hidden nearby; and also scour the levels for interactive prompts and suspicious characters - both have corresponding achievements. Temper your enthusiasm during the search, however, because it is possible to fall off levels in a few instances.
Sometimes playing a level from the level selection menu will continue the story, other times it will just play that single level and that's it - not sure what this depends on. Problem is, to see the true ending after collecting all the laptops it might therefore be necessary to go through the whole game again instead of just the final level. On the bright side, this can of course be done in Assist mode.
At the end of the day, even if this title turned out quite sloppy, the developers' love for games is evident. They took established elements of the genre (and games in general, as can be seen from the inclusion of the attack helicopter boss) and remixed them to produce their own take on it. With a couple of cool graphical effects like sludge and smoke, character abilities - wonky though they are - and a story told in customarily disjointed fashion via flashbacks. They've even hidden themselves in one of the levels, and one has to be observant at the right moment to find them and unlock the related achievement (I confess I had to look up the name of the level). If only they would return with an update to fix at least some of the more blatant issues, which ultimately make this game too unsatisfactory an experience to recommend.
