Finally! I played the base game. My thoughts...

I've finished the game yesterday. I didn't play it on launch, since I was very busy at the time, also the price was prohibitive (80 euros? Wtf Bethesda?) and I don't like using subscription models like gamepass etc..
So finally, after getting the game for a much, much lower price 3 days ago, I got to work.
Since launch, I've heard many opinions that deflated my enthusiasm about the game. The usual "it's not peak like Doom Eternal" , "the music is not as good", "the robot and dragon sections are bad".
With these expectations, I plunged into the game and...
Here are my thoughts.

Gameplay:
I thought the gameplay was even more frenetic and exhilarating then Doom Eternal. To be fair, it took me almost half the game to enter the fun zone completely. When I hit chapter 10, It was as if I was on some kind of hell drug and I gained almost complete control of the slayer. It felt incredible. A feeling that even in Doom Eternal I've never achieved on my first playthrough, despite loving it, of course. I had complete dominion over all the weapons and mechanics and it felt so damn good.
Generally speaking...look, I will always prefer to drive a jet plane (Eternal) compared to a tank (Dark Ages). Jets are my jam... And yet, this to me felt just a tad bit more fun and satisfying then Eternal. I was kinda shocked to come to that realization...
Speaking of actual vehicles: while the sections with the robot and the dragon are not the highlight of the game, they were not overly present at all ( I thought they were gonna be 1/3 of the game from the amount of moaning I've heard online...) and I've found them very fun as a needed switch of pace.
I enjoyed very much the last robot chapter especially. The higher intensity of the combat with the amount of enemies thrown at you, made it if feel more dangerous and frenetic. I loved the fight with the Cthulhu monster, since it had many different attacks. Such a fun, glorious spectacle.
The dragon parts were also fun, it reminded me of Unreal Tournament 2004 when they had these maps where you had to attack a mothership in a vehicle combat mode they introduced back then.
One small thing: I would have added a different animation for when the dragon lands, but it seemed to be always the same one, or similar. Could have used a little variation to not make it look as visually repetitive.

Enemies and Bosses:
I very much enjoyed the enemy offering. I honestly cannot imagine what else they could have done. And I'm a creative guy, I make cartoons for a living.
Just like Eternal, they built a combat system and all the enemies they throw at you, make you use all your arsenal, movement, weapons. I imagine that the dlc (still have to play it) will have some more surprises, but I was already struggling to keep up with the high variety on display here.
I enjoyed the enemy variations with the added armor (loved the little spider demon closing his legs together when overheating) and the morale mechanic. It felt to me like a more elegant execution of the ideas presented in The Ancient Gods, which felt a bit forced back then.

Weapons:
Loved them. I started to use the burst of the shotgun a little late, but to great effect. Even the skull-shredding gun that limits your movement, was really satisfying to use once upgraded.
Loved using the impaler too (it reminded me of an old school classic, Painkiller) and it was among my main weapons , along with the rocket launcher and the super shotgun of course. The plasma rifle had, as always, an amazing sound design and the Cycler variant looked like the machine gun from Quake 1!
The melee weapons were nice and thanks to the Ancient Gods, I gravitated towards using the dreadmace once I obtained it.

Exploration:
The levels were so damn well put together, I loved the exploration. It felt more like real spaces and not just a videogame level. I can't imagine how much effort it took to design all these intricate hidden passages and routes that really make you explore fully the environment in a natural way. Also, have you noticed this? I was surprised that many times you don't just hit a dead-end...they respect the player so much that most of the time they designed a way to find a secret and then circle back to the main area with an extra little section that reconnects, instead of making you backtrack and waste time. If I was the level designer, and I was presented with the task of making 20 chapter of insane level design like this, I would be crying in a corner in the fetal position for how daunting it would be. But....they just did it. Almost everything that I was picking up felt satisfying to get too, and I'm not someone that cares about getting 100% at all.
The platforming was also more streamlined and made use of your awareness of the level, rather than tricky jumps, which I can appreciate. There are other games that I would go for if I wanted tricky platforming, after all.

Sound:
Top tier as usual. The swooshes of the air when jumping and the heavy stomping of the slayer, really sold his tank-like nature. The crunch of the punches when using the robot made me scream of excitment... so satisfying.
There were some little confusing moments where, when you swapped weapons, it didn't make any swapping sounds. Like for instance, I bring up the rocket launcher and it's complete silence. It wasn't a bug either. Kinda strange. The BFC too, despite being visually satisfying, had a weird sound mix on impact. I could swear that even the gauss rifle from 2016 had a much more impactful shooting sound effect. Did you guys notice that too?

Design and characters:
Loved the more dark medieval setting. Not because it's my favorite genre, at all, but because it was needed in the series as change of pace. It also still retained the technological aesthetic and gracefully meld the two styles together.
A picky note: I'm not a big fan of the overly exaggerated expression of some human characters. It reminds me of a trend that you see in 3d pixar/dreamworks movies nowadays, where characters show their expression in a way that is kind of over the top, emoting unnaturally. It's a thing they do especially to get the attention of little kids. It removes the subtlety of human expression and dumbs it down, on top of looking stupid imho. I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about. The annoying smirks and eyebrows going up/swift head tilts to show certain emotions as obviously as possible. Sorry, I'm going on a tangent with these nerdy details...this was present at the beginning mainly, but then it was actually toned down later in the game, thankfully.
About the design of the world and visual direction. You see, I'm not a fan of Marvel movies, at all. Despite that, I think this game went for a more Dune style (Denis Villeneuve's version) and to really great effect. I'd say that some of the set pieces here, are very tastefully put together and artistically would rival even some of the stuff you see on the big screen nowadays. Especially marvel's bs...which I always found very tacky.
They hit it out of the park with this one, it looked phenomenal...
The photography, framing, the character dialogues, cinematic shots, choices of colors. Come one, this is top tier! I struggle to find another example of a game that reached these artistic and technical heights on such a scale too. A huge achievement from ID, and it runs flawlessly on my laptop rtx 5060.
Even though it pisses me off that you have to use an Rtx card to play this game, I will admit that the lighting is really well done and I think, since they had to work less on the pre-backed lights, that this choice probably allowed ID to work more on important aspects, like the gameplay and level design.
That said, in some parts I did find the scenes to be a bit too dark, especially at the beginning.
The lovecraftian realm was a sight to behold, I liked it even more than the Maykr world and makes me scream for a QUAKE reboot. It also gave me some vibes of Xen from the first Half Life.
The "new" cacodemon also reminded me of the floating brain octopus enemies from Duke Nukem 3D. As a 38 year old-old fuck, It really made me smile.

Story:
Never really gave the story much importance personally, I generally prefer when Doom doesn't take itself too seriously. But I still found the overall story very serviceable, and enjoyed the escalation against the main villain and everything around it. It felt like it earned the final confrontation against him. I was legitimately touched when prince Ahzrak killed the dragon too. What a bastard.
I liked also that they didn't go overboard with the Doom guy talking. Just a little thing there when it was needed, nothing more or too corny.
In general, I'm not someone that gets excited with fantasy "mambo jumbo", mystical babbling and macguffings retrievals, if anything it does the opposite to me. But still, the main beats of the story are entertaining and were showcased effectively to motivate you to kick ass and continue the story.
When you actually f*cking die and drive the mythological ship through the underworld to escape it, my god man that was unbelievably bad ass.

Soundtrack:
The soundtrack was fun and I enjoyed some of the more eerie compositions, especially in the lovecraftian part of the game and the use of orchestral pieces near the final chapters. The main song that was in the announcement of the game slaps legitimately hard.
I think it's obvious that this soundtrack is slightly more generic and doesn't have the "generation defining" impact that Mick Gordon's OST brought to the table, but that's ok. It still serves the game really well. Mick has an ability to really nail memorable melodies and use them in an effective way. A bit more of a generic soundtrack, but very competent nonetheless.

Bugs:
Some small niggle was that every now and then (maybe two or three times in total) the door, or event that should make the next objective go forward, would hang or not trigger. Restarting the checkpoint solved it.
One thing that was pretty annoying however, playing on pc, is that during the first half of the game it would lose my key bindings for the weapons. Anyone else got this issue?
No, I'm not saying that it was un-binding my keys, I'm saying that they keys would not work despite being binded correctly. I would press the button for the shotgun, and nothing would happen. After I bring up to the rose of weapons and actively choosing it, it would fix it.
This happened at least 8 times during the first 10 chapters of the game and it got me killed, but then almost disappeared in the latest chapters... Very weird. Aside from that, there were no huge problems.

Conclusion:
Overall, I continue to be amazed by the ability of ID to change the formula and make it stand on its own. We can go back to the other two games and have a familiar and yet different experience, making them worth revisiting. That is the genius of not wanting to repeat their visions and thinking outside the box as much as possible. Every previous game stands beautifully on its own and there's a different vibe for whatever you're in the mood for.
I applaud their commitment to create their resolute vision of the game, despite the criticism of those who (think) they want the same thing over and over.
Next time though, it better be Quake or....I'll become the slayer and rip and tear!