So, I gathered my strength, my spirit, prayed to the God Emperor and gave the game a 3 chance. But still in vain. So, I'll try to describe everything point by point, why this game is not good, IMHO.
1) There is no difference in difficulty other than that described when choosing a new game. Apart from the starting resources, Hp of the opponents and the speed of exploration, nothing changes. The tactics of the enemies remain at the same level, whether you are on Mercy or on Legend. Therefore, even at the lowest difficulty, it will be "problematic" in places.
P.S.: I'll also add that the difficulty curve (how much, when, and whom you get thrown at your opponents) breaks down a lot with the new additions. Yes, this is disabled in the same difficulty selection when starting a new game. If you overlook this, they throw opponents at you that you shouldn't have seen at your stage [spoiler](it was a shock for me to see a Knight made by the Mechanicus Heretics)[/spoiler]
2)A matter of aesthetics. Yes, I understand that the difficulty of the opponents should increase as the story progresses. But you, the developers, decided to put ordinary people with weapons made of ♥♥♥♥ and sticks on the initial opponents who go in front of the basic Death Guard fighters, and at the same time they calmly pierce the armor of the Gray Knights. Yes, even in Space Marine 2, it was shown that the heretic guardsman does a whole 0 damage to the Astartes. Even in a crowd. And then the ♥♥♥♥ cannon pierces the armor...
3) Emotional swing. No kidding, this is exactly the kind of event you will encounter throughout the company. The Inquisitor did not like your action - you are without a strategems for 60 days. You have offended the Grandmaster - you do not receive equipment from the missions you have won for 60 days. The Dominus didn't like the way you were looking at the toaster - keep a lock on the development of the ship. Well, to top it off, I'll add a rather strange idea from the developers that each cutscene ends with a general view of the player. As if something depends on us in the main plot [spoiler](spoiler: it doesn't)[/spoiler]
4)Controversial mechanics.
a) Warp Storm, which are seriously felt only in the first part of the plot, but any psyker's fart of your knights constantly adds percentages to the moment when you are forbidden to heal for 3 turns, or teleportation is forbidden at the right moment (sometimes a serious spoke in the wheel)
b) Mutations. So be it when all enemies get some kind of bonus with Warp Storm. But when an enemy has a chance to mutate, when it takes damage, it's no longer funny. In my presence, the demon received a mutation three times with a 15% chance. Bad luck, you say. I'll tell you, ♥♥♥♥ it. Especially when these mutations provide additional health or armor cells.
c) Armor cells. Ooooh, my favorite armor cells. In other games, armor does its direct job of reducing incoming damage by a fraction equal to its value. Here, starting with the usual Death Guard Astartes, each opponent starts running with armor cells. And that would be fine, but WHO THE ♥♥♥♥ TOLD THE DEVELOPERS THAT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO MAKE THE ARMOR CELLS REGENERATE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TURN?! You will have a situation more than once when you miss the damage and the enemy will survive. And voila, he has 10 armor slots again. Now you have to spend at least 2 actions of your knights to kill him [spoiler](unless he gets a +4 armor cell mutation)[/spoiler]. But the only counter measure to such opponents was added only with DLS about Dreadnoughts and techmarines.
5) Well, actually about the Dreadnought itself. I honestly thought that when he appeared in the barracks of the "Baleful Edict", he would become available on all missions. But no. The Dreadnought was given a place [spoiler]only on special missions, where the technophagus would be fixed[/spoiler]. And such missions are on average 1 out of 3 in the outbreak of Flowering. There will be more if you bring your star system to a serious level of infection. Well, you need to remember that opponents can easily destroy a Dreadnought, and to get a new one, you must bring your knight's durability to 0.
I didn't get into issues like the fact that there's only one animation for multiple knight actions. Or to feel all the advantages of your group, you need to take a sooooo long time to complete the storyline. I will also say that the game has its advantages, which is why I stayed too long in it. But the facts listed above left a more negative connotation from the end of the game.
