Well, I gotta be honest, after Underworld 4 I probably should've seen smth like this coming. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the game is in many places a meme onto itself ^^
I had issues playing the game without lag when music was on. Everytime the game loaded another track, which it would do at the end of any other, the game'd stop for like 3 seconds. So I played with Music off.
Consider this a First Impression Review, I have obviously by far not seen everything, and really only found 1 new area (with other monsters and different enviroments) and an area without enemies but some electrifying railroad instead.
Regarding gameplay, the game doubles down on repeatable cycles of exploration, while the combat has been downscaled to almost a button masher with some tight movements to execute. I didn't really try Magic yet, and I don't yet know where to find the gun. But I did want the Sword, as I liked the older UW games where I got to dash through enemies to damage them. Regardless, the game feels like a Roguelike Collectathon more than it does either an RPG or ARPG.
That's not to say that this is a bad game. It's just not something I see pleasing to older UW fans.
On the more positive notes, the Map seems expansive, for completionists who like to spend alot of time essentially doing the same thing, until new areas are discovered, new enemies met, bosses and secret areas uncovered, and then returning to doing essentially the same thing, this'd be a worthwhile title. While the Inn-rating aspect in towns is funny, the towns themselves are minimalistic, and the NPC's are bags of quests. And I remember much deeper designs from you.
On the other hand, as was usual in your older titles, you go out of your way to provide simple instructions in those NPC quests, first they tell you the problem, then what you need to find, and where to find they tell you by a string of directions (South - South - West - South - East for example), which is, considering my assumption about the target audience is correct, convenient to keep clearing more and more of the map without much thought.
However, because alot of the 'Maps' are rather simplistic and alot of the same enemies appear in alot of places, it is easy to get lost at times. Places seem to hold little significance on their own and exist merely as yet another room to clear and potentially search for secrets in. Sometimes the rooms are more creative than that, providing sort of a trap-room to manuveur around, but the reward is the usual Rare Coins, Bombs n' Keys.
Leveling up seems tedious all things considered, but I also see that the abilities that you can unlock are gamechanging on their own. From ignoring enemy Armor to 'seeing secret rooms in dungeons', as those would be coming in, I imagine the process that seemed repetitive to me becomes much quicker and more enjoyable. After 1 1/2 hours though I am at only half way to my first level up.
In summary, while everything that's here seems to be mechanicly sound, this is a game for peoplez that feel good about laying bombs down everywhere to find the secret 'room' (which is a randomized drop of either items or rarely skills), clear short two room dungeons to accumulate gold and power for their favorite weapon, so that they can unlock all the weapons, of which there seems to be 4, counting bombs, and upgrade everything they can, defeating every Boss that may be lurking, though so far it seems enemies have visual but little mechanical variety. (though in my short playthrough I discovered a purple pig monster thing with something like a crossbow(?) in the room that allowed for greater damage, and skeletons that don't seem to die but instead fall to the ground only ot rise again 5 seconds later, so I may be wrong here).
Ultimatively, the Goal is either to start weaklish and become strong enough to clear to the final boss, or to explore every inch of the map for the sake of doing so, for that '100% of the World explored'
It's less of an Action RPG and more of a Free-Roam (kinda Open World) Collectathon Upgrade-Complete with simple combat that becomes challanging only through high LP and resistant enemies, which I imagine to be the focal point of fun by the end, when one has powered up enough to mow them down with ease. There's alot of different stuff to see for anyone willing to spend the time to get through the early game which so far seems to be a bit of a slog.
Heh^^''' Hope I'm not being too harsh or anything, just wanted to share my thoughts. Obviously you put alot of work and bugfixing into this game and the dreariness of early game may very well be on me not really knowing how to approach a game like this.
I felt alot of times that what I'm doing is inefficient and that I should be going elsewhere and doing something more significant but to collect keys for chests that hold randomized gold rewards, avoiding hearts because of some reward promised mowing down enemies to collect more gold in a room filled with spikes, where I found myself wondering, if it wouldn't be much more reasonable to just run past them.
If I had a suggestions right now, it would be starting out the player at level 1 with 1 skill point. I think that alone can immediatly elevate the experience, and if one chooses something that they end up not liking so much (let's say +5 defense seemed pointless to them in the face of being able to heal by exiting and reentering any room or 'scene'), they can relatively painlessly restart and choose something of greater magnitude, like Armor Breaker.
And on a more Personal note: Hope you're doing well and have a great time, It's good knowing you're around :)
Edit: After Checking the Trailer and finding a YT channel supposedly by you(?) where you played through your own game, I realize that there is in fact more to this game than I could see in my relatively short playthrough. So feel free to disregard any critisism that would seem to be wildly based on ignorance on my part ^^''
In my defense, I deliberately went in blind to preserve a neutral outlook.