The strength upgrades that you can find in each run are actually fun and aren't just mindless "+8% poison resistance" type stat augments. This becomes more and more applicable as you play the game, since you unlock new types of upgrades that you can find throughout your runs, some of which are genuinely game-altering in all the best ways.

You can also set which upgrades will be included in the pool of possible loot you can get in each run. This is a genius stroke of game design since it (1) doesn't discourage purchasing upgrades that you aren't sure if you'll want or not, as you can just disable it if you find that it's not as useful to you as you thought, and (2) allows you to customize your runs to a certain degree by enabling upgrades that benefit each other, thus making it so you can preplan a "full-freeze run" or a "long-range-burn run" etc.

The permanent progression is rendered even more engaging through the choice to make the weapons -the vessels through which you interact with the game world- also unlockable, rather than simply chosen before a run. Although Windblown clearly draws a lot of its inspiration for combat from Hades, this is one aspect where they decided to do the opposite, and I think it really benefits the fun-factor of Windblown.

However, the weapons being the way they are in Hades is for a reason: they are aspects of weapons from mythological tales, and thus fit neatly into the very tightly crafted narrative of the Hades games. The same cannot be said about Windblown, and I find this to be its biggest downside: the story is an absolute snoozefest.
I made an effort to actually read and follow the story whenever it progressed, and I still didn't care one bit about anything that was going on, and I 100%'ed the game as it currently stands.
The most common answer to asking your friend about their opinion on the story will be "what story?", so don't expect a narratively fulfilling experience. If you're buying this game, know that it should be purely for the gameplay.

Speaking of which, this leads me to the biggest strength of Windblown: the multiplayer.
Roguelites are not usually the prime target for multiplayer, whether that be in order to provide a coherent narrative experience, or due to design challenges in balancing such a randomized experience for multiple players, or whatever other reason. However, I believe adding multiplayer to almost any game is the simplest thing a developer can do to instantly better their game, and clearly Windblown agrees with that philosophy. Furthermore, it implements it really well:
The netcode is surprisingly smooth and I encountered almost no lag ever despite joining people in different continents from mine. The design for how unlocks are handled is also well thought-out: every player gets their own set of loot whenever anything is obtained in a run, but since almost everything can be dropped, your teammates and you can swap upgrades. This is a double whammy w as it allows (1) players to pick upgrades that their teammate might benefit from if they didn't get what they wanted, and then drop it for them; as well as (2) try out upgrades that their teammates have unlocked which they might not have.

Overall Windblown is on a great path in Early Access, and I'm certain that anyone who enjoys action-roguelites (especially Hades) will have a good time with it.
I sure hope they don't make a series of bafflingly horrendous design decisions leading up to the full release!