Notes
A bug with Steam Notes caused a lot of my initial thoughts on the game to be deleted.
I only played the campaign. Haven't felt like returning yet to try Arena.

• Gameplay loop is fun albeit simplistic at times. I wish there were more interesting dynamics for players to utilize to combo and deal with larger swarms. Sometimes it can feel like mashing M1, even on the hardest difficulty.
  
• Lot of style and charm
  
• Music is great

• AI teammates are incredibly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ useless and it's game-ruining. AI teammates don't autopickup new guns when the old ones are spent (????). They go down all the time and require constant revives. They waste bullets on enemies who can't be damaged by bullets. Also, you can switch between you and an AI partner on the fly to change what you're dealing with. However, in the endgame, the game throws the entire kitchen sink at you and your AI teammate just cannot deal with whatever you put it in. This is made worse by the fact that if your squad wipes, you have to restart the entire level. I've lost 20+ minutes of progress several times because my AI teammates would just continually screw up and there was nothing I could do. It is the critical issue that ruins the campaign for me.
  
• The hardest difficulty is locked behind completion even though the difficulty below it is so easy I was able to first try most levels.
  
• Controls feel a little bit weird for new players. Aiming is definitely something that takes getting used to, and even when you're used to it it's still not phenomenal. I think they made the best of a bad system though.
  
• A pair of bosses is recycled at LEAST 3 times.
  
• Cutscenes are amateurish; there is blatant clipping of models at times and the cutscenes themselves feel slow. I find myself having to manually advance the cutscene to make it feel more natural. Also, to save money and time on voice acting, they use generic voice lines that indicate emotion or tone. This is a fine system, but Christoff refuses to work with Hank in text, but Christoff says "Impressive" as he refuses. ?????
  
• One boss (The Sherriff) is so embarassingly easy; you can just keep wailing on him with punches and he can't fight back. The fight becomes trivial, which is bad for a boss fight that's been built up.

Madness: Project Nexus is actually a good game. I think in co-op with a competent buddy you would totally clean house and have fun doing it, but as a singleplayer campaign experience, issues with AI make this unfinishable. I really wanted to like this game, but in its current state, I cannot recommend it.

[h1]Madness: Project Nexus's singleplayer campaign has game-ruining issues with AI.[/h1] [i]Notes[/i] A bug with Steam Notes caused a lot of my initial thoughts on the game to be deleted. I only played the campaign. Haven't felt like returning yet to try Arena. [h2]Pros[/h2] [list] [*] Gameplay loop is fun albeit simplistic at times. I wish there were more interesting dynamics for players to utilize to combo and deal with larger swarms. Sometimes it can feel like mashing M1, even on the hardest difficulty. [*] Lot of style and charm [*] Music is great [/list] [h2]Cons[/h2] [list] [*] [b]AI teammates are incredibly fucking useless[/b] and it's game-ruining. AI teammates don't autopickup new guns when the old ones are spent (????). They go down all the time and require constant revives. They waste bullets on enemies who can't be damaged by bullets. Also, you can switch between you and an AI partner on the fly to change what you're dealing with. However, in the endgame, the game throws the entire kitchen sink at you and your AI teammate just cannot deal with whatever you put it in. This is made worse by the fact that if your squad wipes, you have to restart the entire level. I've lost 20+ minutes of progress several times because my AI teammates would just continually screw up and there was nothing I could do. [b]It is the critical issue that ruins the campaign for me.[/b] [*] The hardest difficulty is locked behind completion even though the difficulty below it is so easy I was able to first try most levels. [*] Controls feel a little bit weird for new players. Aiming is definitely something that takes getting used to, and even when you're used to it it's still not phenomenal. I think they made the best of a bad system though. [*] A pair of bosses is recycled at LEAST 3 times. [*] Cutscenes are amateurish; there is blatant clipping of models at times and the cutscenes themselves feel slow. I find myself having to manually advance the cutscene to make it feel more natural. Also, to save money and time on voice acting, they use generic voice lines that indicate emotion or tone. This is a fine system, but Christoff refuses to work with Hank in text, but Christoff says "Impressive" as he refuses. ????? [*] One boss (The Sherriff) is so embarassingly easy; you can just keep wailing on him with punches and he can't fight back. The fight becomes trivial, which is bad for a boss fight that's been built up. [/list] [h3]Conclusion[/h3] Madness: Project Nexus is actually a good game. I think in co-op with a competent buddy you would totally clean house and have fun doing it, but as a singleplayer campaign experience, issues with AI make this unfinishable. I really wanted to like this game, but in its current state, I cannot recommend it.