Dolmen

It's a mediocre soulslike game, playable enough if you don't have high expectation.
Graphic is fine but you can clearly tell that this is a low budget game.

You have energy bar which use for bullets and healing and you insta heal. Now the bullets consume temporary energy and will refill overtime but some guns have strong attack that use energy permanently.
Healing also use permanent energy. You can refill it with energy battery which you acquire only in defeating bosses (7 max).

Melee combat is serviceable but kinda floaty but not full floaty. The hitbox sometimes get janky and this game would be really harder if it wasn't for the existence of the guns.
The guns at least some of them are really fun, it's the best aspect of this game.

You can't upgrade weapons which sucks, you can put materials in its slots to buff it but you can't also remove them so it is stuck with whatever attachment you put. So the only way to up your damage is to keep leveling the scale of those weapons. I don't know what the devs were thinking of this design.
You can upgrade armors though and each upgrade will change the aesthetic which is nice.

It also has technology tree which gives passive buffs on your character depending on what type of armaments you currently equip. So you can mix and match what works on you.

Some areas are unnecessarily big, lots of empty spaces specially in the starting area of 3rd Act.
By the way enemies drop tier 1 materials from start to finish. The only way to get higher grade materials is pick on ground which means they are limited and bad by design. Props to devs for putting an annoying enemy for the spirit of souls game. That tentacle guy in 3rd act who keeps spinning his tentacle and deflects bullets, also its melee and range attacks are so fast and phase through pillars. The only way to cheese them is run around on some pillars and shoot them in the back.

Bosses are ok but some could really be a pain to fight if you don't use guns. Some bosses have one shot kill just for added annoyance. Specially the final boss who have full poise in all attack and cannot be parried.

Also the mythical Dolmen fragment which is the source of the conflict in the story is nothing but use for re fighting boss to acquire much needed resources to get the boss weapons.
It would have been good if those Dolmen can level you up just so it has more use in your play since they are not that frequent to drop anyway or I don't know can convert them to specific materials that you may need to craft weapons and armors.

After the campaign you can still run around to complete all achievements. Playable enough for one playthrough.
I give this game 5/10.

What an absolute GEM this game is. I duno why the negative reviews and the fact that it should be more known. awesome music and sfx. Eerie creepy appropriate environments...% with equally horrific creatures. Game runs very well on epic graphics

Very underrated game, really enjoyed it.

A good blend of melee and ranged, with good movement, and weapons, as well as challenging enemies and bosses.

The reported glitches appear to have been fixed, I did not find any, and had no crashes.

Probably too difficult for those who find thinking too difficult, or who like less challenging games.
A sequel would be very interesting.

Not my cup of tea! This game seems very wonky, the controls are off and the timing is atrocious. It makes for a difficult play. The graphics have potential but the game feels like an early 2000's release.

absolute cinema

Combat is SUPER CLUNKY it feels like a chore using melee weapons. Game is not worth the $20 price tag because the controls, movement and combat "FEEL OFF" The only way to stomach sitting through this game is just use ranged weapons. It literally feels like it was designed as a 3rd person shooter and they tacked on melee and souls elements later on. Even Hellpoint has better polish and for those discounting the Surge. The SURGE feels like Elden ring compared to this game lol

I never understood the Surge HATE because they game feels super Polished compared to majority of the other discount souls likes

Pick this game up on sale if you don't have any other souls-like game to play.

Souls-liken't

I very rarely don't recommend a game as I usually think the only things that are disqualifying for a game are bugs but for me the gameplay just wasn't fun and that's a rare thing for me. Plots/world building in soulslikes are usually quite different than traditional games but it's basically non-existent/bad in this game (no offense to the 5 man dev team). A lot of elements of gameplay are left unexplained which you may like or dislike depending on personal preference. Also as someone who ignored the other reviews and played the tank class (think ultra greatsword from dark souls) there are classes in this game it's unfun to play. You'd think someone with a big sword would be killing small enemies in 1 hit, maybe 2 but you don't and that doesn't work for a class that is supposed to hit hard and fast. Absolutely kills the class.

Its really sad to see the reviews for this game. Having recently bought this game and completed it 3 times. One with Guns only, one with dual wield only, one with unga bunga asmongold style club smash only. I can say that I have now the right to give a review for this sadly rather down voted game.

As a fan of dark souls games, this game is really good. It has fun bosses, that are arguably sadly rather easy; despite what people say. Looking at you in the comments who says last boss is hard. (literally one of the easiest bosses in the game). Just like your typical dark souls games; clearing to the bosses is where most of your deaths will come from, especially those dark shadowey ET lookin MF'ers in act 3 of this game, holy god are they annoying :D in a good way.
The game looks visually nice, plays well, the bosses are fun, the weapons are fun, the builds are fun.
Despite what people say, Stamina is not an issue in the slightest, not even for unga bunga builds. Just play 1-2 hits , dodge chill 2 secs, 1-2 hits chill 2 secs and u will never have any problems.

Honestly, can see myself playing this again in the future, its well worth the price. I feel sorry for the devs who likely took the down voting to heart and wont make a second game. I would truly love to see a Dolmen 2 tbh.

Bruh

this game is so good bro while i played it i did not touch grass