So after about 100 hours or so of play, I’ve decided to let this game gather dust, which is a shame as it’s not cheap and the money paid for an unfinished platform was high. With that said I’m aware it’s still quite new and games companies these days are happy to sell unfinished stuff and use the Beta excuse. So to the crux of the matter, and issues that just make this lacklustre and a possible dead end, and I’m not alone in this thinking, and opening on Steam of just 60% is never good. There are good points, but at the moment they are secondary to the issues.

Classes:

Where better to start as these are the core of the game and all feel more or less that they could have undergone better testing before release.

Mage:

What in the name of slaanesh’s armpit is this? Not only does it have a spell for all occasions, it’s out of lore, and that purple screen of doom the minute you do decide to cast the spells a bit looks terrible. And the warp perils that prevent you from using cover as they track you down and burn you to death look like something from the 1990’s. Whichever dev though this was a good idea needs to be fed to the hounds or chaos. Oh, and when you die and respawn the screen is still purple and stuck that way.

Solution: Bring the mage more in line with the lore, focusing more on buffs/debuffs/group skills with a few niche areas, demon killing etc. at the moment they feel and play like a rogue mage hunted down not as part of his majesty glorious secret service.

Assassin:

Sniper, ok I get that, a death cult, well at a push, shotgun type, are you taking the piss. Ok so dropping lore, it would be good if the ‘sin’ could actually outrange some of the cultist’s she’s shooting at. And why for the love of emperor do you feel the need to do cutscenes where you place the squishy assassin right in front of the 10 chaos marines and 15 cultists to have a chit-chat resulting in near instant death the minute it’s over. Then there is the leapy jumpy death cultist, great until you have to fight say a tank.

Solution: Snipers should you know, be able to snipe, from a distance. Deathcults type needs some way of tackling tanks etc. drop the stupid shotgun type and maybe use one from the lore?? – Items like Melta bombs etc will help with the heavy stuff.

Crusader:

Probably the default build most will go to, you have the choice of three kits here, a jump pack that works ok, the cyclone missile system that sort of works and a turret system that is useless. Really! summon a tarantula turret worse than the AI ones, spends ½ the time wobbling around or resetting to default mode, has no armour or hit points and less range than the enemy basic grunts. That aside you have the choice of pistols, 2 handed guns or heavy weapons, the latter you have to grind for hours to unlock and then realise they suck compared to the regular weapons. The heavies feel totally underwhelming and most players just drop them and go for melee which isn’t as good as the assassin. The melee weapons feel disappointing in many cases, the thunder hammer is slow and doesn’t have any great feel, single or double . Chainswords (which can’t be doubled for cool looks) are ok, but again of no use versus a lot of stuff. And bosses like those groups of three chaos marine sorcs with just melt you in seconds while you’re trying to hit one down. Melee weapons also need an overhaul, if I hit a tank with a thunder hammer I want it to know it’s been hit, Shields should give 1-2 seconds of block, not 0.2, that’s stupid and smacks of lack of playtesting. It makes 0 difference. The shield charge would be nice but often clips something and stops. Melee works far better than ranged but still feels very underwhelming is boss fights. 

Solution: Heavy weapons should be just that!  area denial focusing on either alpha or dps.  Multi-Melta should burn down those bastard sentinels or tanks quickly but be less effective at mobs, Heavy bolter should be the mob slayer hosing down them in seconds, for marines, Plasma etc. But at the moment they all feel more or less the same. You could even have a lockdown mode where the player can’t move but becomes a stationary destructive support system, ideal for co-op etc.

Overall the classes feel out of character for what they should do, or in the mages case just OP and badly tested. I don't blame the devs for this, I lay that finger of blame on the 'super testers' who as has been noted are a bunch of sycophants who instead of saying something didn't work nodded and agreed with every choice. but the classes are just the tip of the chaos-infested iceberg that is bobbing around at the moment.