Metal Eden

The combination of the visual design and the story setup make Metal Eden an enticing experience before even booting it up. And while it tries to blend that sci-fi world with fast-paced combat centered around parkour and hot-swapping weapons, the pieces don't fit together tight enough to be enjoyable for a long enough percentage of its short runtime. When the credits roll it feels unfinished, and at times throughout it feels misguided. When you've got significant upgrades, inside of the later levels, it approaches a satisfying shooter experience, it's just a shame that it isn't at least a few levels longer, which would make the package feel more complete. A few issues can be softened with some polish, by tweaking values and cooldowns or fixing the way you sometimes jarringly mantle a ledge to the side that you can't see when you jump, but the largest ones would require an adjustment to the design philosophy overall.