Recent reviews by mx stephx

This one's really good, it does very almost everything it sets out to do quite well:
+Universe feels authentic
+Gathering intel to come up with a plan of attack before approaching an enemy that's been randomly generated so you can't know what to expect was a neat new experience.
+Your death can influence the game world exactly as much as your life. It's super cool and I really loved going back to hunt down the uruk bastard that had just sent me to a tower.
+It's an AC/Arkham type combat system which requires absolutely incredible animation quality. SoM delivers and never looks stale.
+Dug the rune system, it's a good way to specialize what you want to do before a given fight, and it gives you continued incentive to kill captains when branding them suddenly feels a lot more useful.

With a few minor drawbacks:
-The combat felt a little too easy. You don't even have to parry most of the time, just can slice right through everything until your combo turns red and you can execute something.
-When the combat gets hard, it's because you're either overwhelmed by 75 orcs or the captain is invulnerable to basically everything. It doesn't scale, really.
-The stealth felt a LOT too easy. I get that It's easy to make stealth feel like frustrating BS with instant fail states, but your average uruk is blind and stupid. I snuck up on a lot of baddies from slightly to the side, and noisy stealth kills right next to another uruk that doesn't get alerted were a no-go for me too.
-QTEs are a scourge, game has too many in exactly the wrong places T____T

I had a blast though, and if you're into slicing up hordes of enemies and hunting down the one you couldn't (or your friend couldn't), you will too.

Outstanding little game here for those of us who GOTTA GO FAST. Be warned, the learning curve is extremely steep, but once it clicks the free-flowing wall running & jet pack mechanics feel amazing. It's super rewarding if you stick with it. The developer is awesome too, very transparent and active in the community.

Dust:AET will occasionally have you calling shenanigans on an unfair death, but for the most part this is a beautiful, rock-solid action platformer about hacking, slashing, jumping, shocking, and the 5 Ds of Dodgeball. M+K is ok but you'll have more fun with a gamepad.