SUPERHOT

SUPERHOT is a game where I love the core mechanic, hated the story, wrapped up a playthrough in about 2 hours, and felt like I shouldn't have spent the money.

That's my basic trajectory.

The core concept, which is the part I loved, is that time only moves when you move.  It's kind of like having permanent bullet time... but only when standing still?  It works really well.  It's fun and it's new and it's interesting.  Even by the time I wrapped up my playthrough I felt like I was getting better at the game and learning more about it every level.  The core mechanic is strong.

It's everything else surrounding it that I didn't like.  The story is annoying and over-serious cyberpunk dystopian fare.  The worst part is that it shoves this story in between really fun gameplay and totally breaks the fun pacing of the actual levels themselves.  It could have been done so much better.  Or it could have been skipped and nothing would have felt like it was missing.

This is the opposite feeling I had with Firewatch.  I finish up Firewatch, felt like I had an amazing narrative experience, saw my playtime was around three and a half hours, and felt pretty good about spending the $18.  SUPERHOT wrapped up and my playtime was 2 hours and I felt very ripped off.

Here's my recommendation.  Buy this game.  But don't buy it now!  Wait for the inevitable Steam sale and pick it up when it drops below $10 or $5... whatever your threshold is.  There's really cool core gameplay here but that's about it.