Tldr: so far its god of wars 'the last jedi'
Non story stuff: gameplay, at least so far, is literally 1 to 1 with the previous game. Not bad per se but they could have improved some things- better options for dealing with enemies in blind spots notably. That said it might be a banjo tooie thing where ill get abilities to do that. Im only like 3 hrs in
Its borderline cuphead like as ive hit multiple set piece bosses already and i feel like exploration has taken a hard backseat.
Most enemies are boring humans instead of the interesting and unique draughr from the last game
Spoilers (though i have to say im shocked how early some of this happened)
The story, so far, is dumb. Full stop.
Kratos is at multiple times inferred to be an angry and uselss old man who needs to be lectured about how violence and killing is wrong, how he doesnt know what hes doing and how atreus is seeking knowlege kratos cant provide. This happens frequently, including by his dead wife who speaks in modern language, insults him to his face calls him "good boy" like an obedient puppy. This is in a flashback and the implication if there will be many many more like it. In real life "Consequences for your violence" are shown, shaming the player.
Both odin and thor show up at his house and act like lame early 00s gangsters and they too speak in modern language In painfully long cutscenes followed by a painfully long bossfight with no payoff. Odin, if he is supposed to be threatening, is a complete dud. I miss anthony hopkins
We havent even got to the diversity characters yet but with loki turning into animals i cant wait to find out all about the environment and how reducing carbon emissions could have prevented the fimbulwinter before kratos is ultimately killed as im sure he will be as this seems like that kind of game
Having watched some of a playthrough of it, the story seemed linear, and it was up to you to explore. That seems fine to me. You aren't forced to just do bosses. Look around.
I took a lot of the discussion (to where I've seen, I'd say between 6 and 10 hours depending on how thorough you are at exploring) seemed to be more about Kratos acknowledging war isn't always the right answer, and that Atreus should learn from mistakes made from both himself and Kratos.
His dead wife talking was a bit much the way she did.
Odin/Thor talking the way they do is also, frankly, retarded. Odin more so. I like the actor and how he's portraying him (voice wise), but the writing is terrible.
In short, not worth full price if you want to buy it, wait for it to hit 30$ (or less).