Gameplay
Combat is very good, it's not at the level of exceptional that was DOOM 2016, but it is still very fluid and reminiscent of Bioshock. weapons feel great to use and well animated(my best one is the single-hand pump action of KS-23, well done, devs!)and the enemies are diverse enough, it will feel acceptable at the very least to most people, but it doesn't come without its flaws. in the beginning, I found the enemies a bit too bullet spongey, the seemingly endless number of repair bots is annoying at times, stealth across the game is almost nonexistent as silencers are simply not a thing and they will be on alert once they catch a glimpse of you and the mechanic of weak points are present but they are not weak enough to guarantee you a kill of the most basic robot with a single well placed shot from a Makarov or an AK(but this is somewhat understandable since you're fighting robots not humans in this game). plus I felt the leap distance of some enemies is a bit too much, I've seen some basic low tier enemies rushing 6 or 7 meters within seconds. navigating is fine, but oftentimes the ingame map doesn't provide enough information. map design, just alright, they managed to utilize the limited indoor space fairly well for first timers and driving around outdoor spaces full of robots, dead people and communist monuments felt okay so I have no complaints. training facility puzzles are somewhat janky. sometimes you'll find yourself wondering, "was that the solution?" after solving the platforming puzzle because a lot of platforming stuff involves using your dash ability and in some cases, it's possible to skip an entire section with the proper use of it. doorlock ones are much better and I enjoyed every second of me solving those puzzles.

Art Direction
The artstyle of this game is relatively coherent, while not completely so. and that is okay, since the facility is not made of one man's work. it's rather the work of multiple geniuses from multiple design bureaus and it makes sense. in contrast to the usual video game portrayal of (post)soviet settings-abandoned villages, decaying machines, rust ridden symbols-Atomic Heart's retrofuturistic style that looks straight out from Technika Molodezhi is very fresh and unique. one slightly disappointing thing is that some of the elements, namely automobiles, are anachronistic for an ingame setting of 1955, but in a world where rapid technological advancement is a thing, I can also give this a pass. I personally think it would be more appropriate to set this game in 60s or even 70s, but developers may have thought that this scale of innovation and changes were only possible in Khrushchev's era, not Brehznev's when its represented by stagnation and hiatus. some of character/weapon design is also done to appeal to modern standards (and possibly, to western audiences) and barely fits to its era.

Story
Now I'll be blunt, it's bad. probably the weakest part of this game. Protagonist unironically repeating the same idea across the game from start to end is tiresome, and a large portion of important cutscenes end in a way of either you losing your target or fading out and it gets old. now you will soon learn that he belongs in the special... forces in both ways for a reason but this Major Nachaev, P-3, is certainly not a likable person to deal with, or to play as. ever heard of 5 stages of grief? well this guy only can go through the first two stages before back to square one. but unfortunately protagonist isn't the only problem, and other characters also have similar issues like some characters turning batwhat crazy at the pettiest thing imaginable, other ones dumping every information to the player only at the end. it is simply not paced well and not planned well, it's almost as if when they took notes from the Bioshock Infinite they overdone it, and even took inspiration from the weakest elements of that game and executed it more poorly. in short: don't expect much of a story, the game prioritizes gameplay and visuals if you still haven't noticed.

Music
most of the music that's present in the game is already existing classical music or soviet pop songs, often remixed in modern taste. to talk about modern rearranged tracks, ones with the metal vibes on them, Mick's and Geoffrey's, are tastefully done, it feels great when you're listening them in combat, which is times when you'll hear them the most, some of the other synth-y ones such as Biokonstruktor/Olga Voskonyan's song seemed a bit too out of place even for a retro synth fan such as myself. all of the licensed pop songs are anachronistic, developers were aware of this and there is an ingame explanation of these 'futuristic' notes, however. though, I found it not convincing enough.

Theme
Despite criticized by some people for being a pro-soviet propaganda piece, The game's promotion of the opposite idea will get more evident as the game progresses. problems that were known to be prevalent in the soviet system, such as extreme suppression of individualism, elitization of the CPSU, devaluation of human lives and false promises that were made to the working class are shown directly from ingame dialogue and computer logs and the grand concept of soviet utopia is only relevant during the first 30 or so minutes, after that everything turns to hell and the filth that was hidden under the pretty facade will begin to make its appearance.

Bugs
There were bugs regarding achievements, but they are mostly fixed, mostly. still you'll need to reload your save once or twice in some instances to trigger the cheevos. and if you spam your rushing ability on some tilted surfaces you might find yourself stuck with no way to un-stuck yourself, and there were bugs of world map not displaying due to me still being indoors even though I was already outside, which I solved with save reloading. I experienced 4 crashes(Yes, I counted, throughout the playthrough of approx. thirty hours). when using an english voiceover with russian subtitles, some of them are not synced right and couple of dialogues are impossible to read because they disappear too fast or sometimes don't appear at all. some of the log files remain untranslated and are still in Russian. some animations will be in noticeably lower framerate when playing at a high refresh rate(120Hz/144Hz).

Additional Info
Some sections can not be visited again, if you're a completionist then search for every collectible in the area before you progress.
Do not scrap the early weapons (Axe/KS-23) and let them rest in your storage if you feel like don't need them, there are reports of early weapons' blueprints not spawning at all even in the late game.
While automatic checkpoints are a thing, you shouldn't rely on them since they don't happen that frequently especially when you're doing some side objectives such as the training facilities, save often.
Some of the english subtitles favor the Ukrainian spellings over Russian ones, for example 'chicken Kiyv'. I suspect devs, or translators, CTRL+F'd at the last minute and changed some words given the incorrect capitalization.
Some of the images shown in the game seems to be generated using the AI image generation tech, I believe this is one of the first instances of the tech directly used in video game development.

Despite its weaknesses, this game plays well and runs well, and I definitely had my fun. and considering its Mundfish's first game, and its troubled development history, it's a miracle that this game turned out to be this good. there are four additional DLCs planned in the future, but from the sounds of it they'll be just another minor map expansion with few extra enemies and weapons, consider this game pretty much completed. expect a 20-something hours long experience.
8.5/10.

[h1]An ode to Bioshock from Russia, but an unique experience of its own[/h1] [b]Gameplay[/b] Combat is very good, it's not at the level of exceptional that was DOOM 2016, but it is still very fluid and reminiscent of Bioshock. weapons feel great to use and well animated(my best one is the single-hand pump action of KS-23, well done, devs!)and the enemies are diverse enough, it will feel acceptable at the very least to most people, but it doesn't come without its flaws. in the beginning, I found the enemies a bit too bullet spongey, the seemingly endless number of repair bots is annoying at times, stealth across the game is almost nonexistent as silencers are simply not a thing and they will be on alert once they catch a glimpse of you and the mechanic of weak points are present but they are not weak enough to guarantee you a kill of the most basic robot with a single well placed shot from a Makarov or an AK(but this is somewhat understandable since you're fighting robots not humans in this game). plus I felt the leap distance of some enemies is a bit too much, I've seen some basic low tier enemies rushing 6 or 7 meters within seconds. navigating is fine, but oftentimes the ingame map doesn't provide enough information. map design, just alright, they managed to utilize the limited indoor space fairly well for first timers and driving around outdoor spaces full of robots, dead people and communist monuments felt okay so I have no complaints. training facility puzzles are somewhat janky. sometimes you'll find yourself wondering, "was that the solution?" after solving the platforming puzzle because a lot of platforming stuff involves using your dash ability and in some cases, it's possible to skip an entire section with the proper use of it. doorlock ones are much better and I enjoyed every second of me solving those puzzles. [b]Art Direction[/b] The artstyle of this game is relatively coherent, while not completely so. and that is okay, since the facility is not made of one man's work. it's rather the work of multiple geniuses from multiple design bureaus and it makes sense. in contrast to the usual video game portrayal of (post)soviet settings-abandoned villages, decaying machines, rust ridden symbols-Atomic Heart's retrofuturistic style that looks straight out from Technika Molodezhi is very fresh and unique. one slightly disappointing thing is that some of the elements, namely automobiles, are anachronistic for an ingame setting of 1955, but in a world where rapid technological advancement is a thing, I can also give this a pass. I personally think it would be more appropriate to set this game in 60s or even 70s, but developers may have thought that this scale of innovation and changes were only possible in Khrushchev's era, not Brehznev's when its represented by stagnation and hiatus. some of character/weapon design is also done to appeal to modern standards (and possibly, to western audiences) and barely fits to its era. [b]Story[/b] Now I'll be blunt, it's bad. probably the weakest part of this game. Protagonist unironically repeating the same idea across the game from start to end is tiresome, and a large portion of important cutscenes end in a way of either you losing your target or fading out and it gets old. now you will soon learn that he belongs in the special... forces in both ways for a reason but this Major Nachaev, P-3, is certainly not a likable person to deal with, or to play as. ever heard of 5 stages of grief? well this guy only can go through the first two stages before back to square one. but unfortunately protagonist isn't the only problem, and other characters also have similar issues like some characters turning batwhat crazy at the pettiest thing imaginable, other ones dumping every information to the player only at the end. it is simply not paced well and not planned well, it's almost as if when they took notes from the Bioshock Infinite they overdone it, and even took inspiration from the weakest elements of that game and executed it more poorly. in short: don't expect much of a story, the game prioritizes gameplay and visuals if you still haven't noticed. [b]Music[/b] most of the music that's present in the game is already existing classical music or soviet pop songs, often remixed in modern taste. to talk about modern rearranged tracks, ones with the metal vibes on them, Mick's and Geoffrey's, are tastefully done, it feels great when you're listening them in combat, which is times when you'll hear them the most, some of the other synth-y ones such as Biokonstruktor/Olga Voskonyan's song seemed a bit too out of place even for a retro synth fan such as myself. all of the licensed pop songs are anachronistic, developers were aware of this and there is an ingame explanation of these 'futuristic' notes, however. though, I found it not convincing enough. [b]Theme[/b] Despite criticized by some people for being a pro-soviet propaganda piece, The game's promotion of the opposite idea will get more evident as the game progresses. problems that were known to be prevalent in the soviet system, such as extreme suppression of individualism, elitization of the CPSU, devaluation of human lives and false promises that were made to the working class are shown directly from ingame dialogue and computer logs and the grand concept of soviet utopia is only relevant during the first 30 or so minutes, after that everything turns to hell and the filth that was hidden under the pretty facade will begin to make its appearance. [b]Bugs[/b] There were bugs regarding achievements, but they are mostly fixed, mostly. still you'll need to reload your save once or twice in some instances to trigger the cheevos. and if you spam your rushing ability on some tilted surfaces you might find yourself stuck with no way to un-stuck yourself, and there were bugs of world map not displaying due to me still being indoors even though I was already outside, which I solved with save reloading. I experienced 4 crashes(Yes, I counted, throughout the playthrough of approx. thirty hours). when using an english voiceover with russian subtitles, some of them are not synced right and couple of dialogues are impossible to read because they disappear too fast or sometimes don't appear at all. some of the log files remain untranslated and are still in Russian. some animations will be in noticeably lower framerate when playing at a high refresh rate(120Hz/144Hz). [b]Additional Info[/b] Some sections can not be visited again, if you're a completionist then search for every collectible in the area before you progress. Do not scrap the early weapons (Axe/KS-23) and let them rest in your storage if you feel like don't need them, there are reports of early weapons' blueprints not spawning at all even in the late game. While automatic checkpoints are a thing, you shouldn't rely on them since they don't happen that frequently especially when you're doing some side objectives such as the training facilities, save often. Some of the english subtitles favor the Ukrainian spellings over Russian ones, for example 'chicken Kiyv'. I suspect devs, or translators, CTRL+F'd at the last minute and changed some words given the incorrect capitalization. Some of the images shown in the game seems to be generated using the AI image generation tech, I believe this is one of the first instances of the tech directly used in video game development. Despite its weaknesses, this game plays well and runs well, and I definitely had my fun. and considering its Mundfish's first game, and its troubled development history, it's a miracle that this game turned out to be this good. there are four additional DLCs planned in the future, but from the sounds of it they'll be just another minor map expansion with few extra enemies and weapons, consider this game pretty much completed. expect a 20-something hours long experience. 8.5/10.