It's very difficult to review this one. Not sure why exactly, probably because the game did know what it was actually going for till the 4th DLC. I can say for sure that the game was a big overhyped when it released, probably because it's been awhile that we had anything set in soviet's era, let alone something in retro-futurism style. The opening definitely has a solid wow-effect on you. Relatively busy environment, lots of small details to look out for, especially if you familiar with the soviet's culture. The sense of grandeur and then the sharp drop into chaos... It works great. But then it becomes a bit of a mess.
There were quite a few things, that I liked besides the visuals and aesthetics. Mass collection of resources is very satisfying. Eleanora is funny, and I was sad, that not all cabinets were using her voice. And... According to my notes that was, practically it. After the intro you essentially get into lengthy corridors, which take a long time before you go up for fresh air. "Open world" looks really good and quite detailed, but ultimately required only for optional sets of puzzles, that... happen In the corridors. Or large rooms with corridors. Some of them still were quite stylish and atmospheric, but still. And then after the "open world" you are still thrown into corridors. And then again. And again.
The corridors are not necessarily identical, some of them to have "character", and there are huge underground rooms, too. They all make sense, but you start to see a pattern quite soon. Sadly, the pattern also involves some very annoying things: jumping puzzles which seemed to have extra latency for me (could be gamepad, though), hovering items, that you need to carry, that get stuck in everything, because they are hovering like half a meter in front of your hand... And the locks. Especially those with the "hare": they were constantly lagging for me, and they were on timers, so frequent failures. I had to switch to mouse, which helped a little bit, but still was not perfect.
All of it would be fine, if the story was good, but... It was not really. I will get back to it later, but for the main game, what negatively stood for me was that scene with Twins and Molotov, which was unnecessary slow, and the last part of the game. It was essentially slow info dump. It was revealing "plot twists", and logically it made sense, but from presentation it was just a bore. Final boos fight was fun, and cliffhanger was intriguing, but then there were DLCs...
Annihilation Instinct started... Not where the base game ended. At least not for me. There was a "choice" at the end of the game, so maybe it started from the alternative ending I did not choose. But still weird. Other than that it was... Solid gameplay-wise and story was ok, I guess, not worse, at least. Goose was funny, but ultimately it went kind of nowhere.
Trapped in Limbo... I probably got a few grey hairs from it. It started where the base game did end, which is good. Looked fun visually, although lost the "we are covering trauma with candy" approach from the base game, which made that style kind of... Pointless, I guess? But the worst part is gameplay, because it's just... Why would you even want to make this the base of a DLC for an FPS? This sliding thing was finicky, with high latency and extremely frustrating. Jumping puzzles - even more frustrating than those in original game. The "subway goose" was somewhat ok, but I think they overcomplicated it, padded it unnecessary, and did not iron out the latency issues. If all of these were short sequences like 5 minutes each at most with optional harder challenges - fine. But you have to spend way more time just to get through to the very end.
In Enchantment Under the Sea it felt like the game started to find itself. Had some fun bosses (Robogirl was very funny, snake boss was a bit annoying, though, because segments were not reacting to the damage quite often). It was a much "tighter" experience. Much better pacing, better story-telling. New characters besides Samodelkin were "meh", and there were some long "corridors", but they were tolerable thanks to very good chemistry between Sergey and Kate.
Blood on Crystal was essentially a continuation of the previous DLC, but now "with a team". It explained what the 1st DLC was about (and why Zina was so angry at us), and it made sense, considering how creepy Lebedev's smile was in this DLC. It was done through a lot of cutscenes in the beginning, which made it feel like a movie, but then... More chatter, more interesting bosses (although a few of them are just bullet hells in 1st person)... More long corridors, unfortunately, but also a few more open sections with more some role-playing that did make sense (unlike before), and the polymorphs that made the environment and lore a bit more interesting.
Important point of the last DLC is that the game turned into outright action comedy. And that's what made it work better. Enchantment was trying to get into similar "mood", but was too cautious (probably because of cartoonish Limbo, which players did not receive well). Here they went off the rails, especially when interacting with some polymorphs. The nature of those polymorphs made it feel grounded still, though. They simply worked better as "parodies" of old soviet culture and modern days both.
The base game tried to be serious even when it was clearly doing silly things (like the flying house). And some things were also clear stabs at the old culture and, at least to some extent, modern putinism. This made whatever drama that was shown feel shallow, as if it was there to artificially make the story darker. It could have worked, since it did work in Bioshock 1 and 2, but I guess it failed due to some reason. Maybe because of switches to 3rd person, which broke immersion for starters.
The open world was not helping either, because it just padded things out, and added very little of substance to the story or world-building. I explored it only for achievements and I was using cheats to speed up my movements, because cars were annoying. Enchantment flipped this by providing a more "narrow" or "guided" experience. Heck, even the corridors there were not that bad, because they fit the narrative and transitions in it, even though they were still annoying.
Blood took that and added a bit of "live environment filled with humor", and it mostly completed the picture. It would be nice to have a bit more depth to some dialogues, and maybe even more "hidden philosophy", even less corridors and even more environmental story-telling (and even more insane "chirpers"). The characters were still "meh", but if watched as a sci-fi action comedy... It's perfectly fine.
As such I am not sure if I can recommend the game or not. If you are here just for the shooting (or melee), or more like the mechanics of it - yes, it's a good shooter (and not a bad melee). If you are here for Bioshock-like experience... The last 2 DLCs are quite close to it, but way more goofy. If you expect a good story - just don't. There is clearly potential, but this experiment was not particular good. You will enjoy the 2nd DLC if you are into those "sliding" games. Not sure if it would be worth the price of the main game plus DLC itself, but... Who am I to stop you?
Anyway, I know that 2nd game was announced already. I really hope that they take the approach from the last 2 DLCs and polish it properly. No need for "open world". No need for "role-playing" even, unless it's to the extent like in the Blood DLC, where you can jump through some hoops or just shoot stuff. If they do that, and go for a more linear experience - it would be a much more impactful game.
