Pros:
Excellent game and it's regularly on sale for just a dollar. You can't get much better value than that.
The weapons (there are 7 with 2 attack modes each) and enemies are all fun. It definitely does a great job of feeling like Heretic/Hexen and reminding you just how cool those were back in the day. There are no character classes but that's ok, you're obviously a necromancer, as the name of the game implies. In fact, it goes even further than those games as you can transform into other beasts with spells (4 beasts with 3 attacks each).
Also, the weapons don't really run out of importance. You know how some games have weaker weapons that you eventually abandon altogether? This doesn't do that, you'll need to use them all and will have to since there are a lot of enemies and you can't carry a whole lot of ammo. Well balanced game in my opinion! Also, no hitscan enemies so you can properly dodge everything if you take your time and pay attention to your surroundings. In fact, none of your weapons are hitscan either so you'll need to utilize skill to attack AND to avoid taking damage.
The level design is incredible in terms of how everything looks and the layout of the individual maps. They are rather detailed with lots of massive differences in height, though it uses a hub style approach which can get confusing for dolts like me. I'd prefer linear progression to hubs any day. With that said, they have a less complicated version where you only have to go to each offshoot from the hub once. Once you have each key from each offshoot, you can open a locked gate in the hub to proceed to a couple of linear levels with a boss fight that culminates with you starting off at the next hub.
After all is said and done (3 hubs with all their various offshoots and boss levels, 21 total maps), you proceed to the included expansion which is 9 linear maps. In total you get 30 amazing maps for your boomer shootin' pleasure.
There are some negative reviews for this game which mention poor level design but they all had one thing in common, less than 30mins of time in game. I will admit the first couple of maps aren't that special but you can't see enough of them in just a half hour, they're too big for you to get far enough in that amount of time. You gotta try going further or just use cheats to jump to a later map and you might end up loving them like I did.
Great sound effects! Simple stuff like weapons, enemies, doors or even just lava pouring down in an area, the sounds are really good with lots of bass for the most part. Some, like the skeleton that throws bones at you, sound a little weak. But most are nicely done.
Great use of Vulkan API with GZdoom. Game runs beautifully on 1440p ultrawide without any framerate issues or stuttering even on the biggest maps. Some others reported issues but it might just be that I have some decent hardware (3090ti/i9-12900k/32GBsDDR5-5200)
Cons:
I did have a consistent reproducible crash (or rather a soft lock and I had to use the task manager to kill the process) on the map 'Earthen Depths' which is a fantastic map by the way. I'd reckon it's my favorite, very large map with loads of narrow cliffs and platforming. Anyway, right before you get to the end of the map it froze up multiple times in the same place, just use the noclip cheat to get around that specific area and you'll be fine.
Oddly enough, it is called Hands of Necromancy yet I rarely found a viable use for the 'Hands of Necromancy' item (brings an enemy back to life on your side). Many of the maps are too narrow and heavily dependent on platforming so I found that most of the time the 'Hands of Necromancy' would go to waste as the awful AI gets hung up easily and doesn't help me at all. With that said, the expansion maps were larger and allowed more use of it. Protip: Revive the flying enemies and they'll do a better job following you around and at the very least, will distract some enemies for you.
