I do very much like the game, unfortunately this write up is pretty much entirely focused on the negative since it was mostly written as constructive feedback.
So in a nutshell why the game is worth buying; it combines great quirky british humour with dark creepy horror, it has a sweet retro look that is actually original and not just another pixel art game. The gameplay can get repetitive, but its not a clone of anything else, like most titles are.
The main problem is once you learn basics and how to abuse the robots poor AI and accuracy, the only real challenge is finding the fragments. But this challenge is not of an enjoyable nature longterm, and due to the randomness of certain shard (fragment) spawns you might feel the desire to uninstall the game more than the desire to complete it.
I actually got first 7 fragment without much of a scratch, but then the last one on island 3 took me HOURS to the point I wanted to quit and had racked up tons of deaths due to boredom. I realise that you can choose to start with a tracker or map or something but I didn't want to start all over (although that would have been quicker).
it happened to me a 2nd (and final) time even once I found a map, I had 1 shard hiding on the absolute edge of map hidden by the cliffside. after combing entire island I had to map out a super thorough search like so to find it;
^Gamespot says that image is smallest they can go...
I feel like maybe the last shard on an island should have its location hinted at in some way, I reckon its unlikely to have 2 super difficult shards on one island, considering I only has issues with 2 out of my total 18.
Now the combat part of the game unlike the searching should be very challenging, but isn't. The only robot threat you can't simply sprint away from is the mounted chap, the rest it really is quite possible to zig zag/hug cover and get away from even 10 robots shooting at you. I guess this is partly because most have shotguns, but the accuracy vs moving player seems very bad. So I do feel that robots need to spot you and shoot accurately from further away than currently, pherhaps on a harder difficulty setting.
The last thing I have to say is about the sound/horror part of the game. there seems to only be one small piece of music, and the game isn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Obviously these two things are connected, with a constant suspenseful soundtrack the game would actually be bloody scary. music really does make that much difference, play slenderman without that soundtrack and its not remotely scary. but you do need enough tracks so its doesn't become too repetitive in a game of this length, at least one for each environment type.
The real failing of the game is that with such an impressive random map generation, they haven't manged to make the replayable and enjoyable long term. I think this is a game everyone should play, but its probably worth waiting till its on sale in honesty.
PS: excuse my slight dsylexia pls